And as anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows, I consider myself a dear and loving friend to Supernatural.
I fully support Sera Gamble taking over as show-runner. I will forever love Eric Kripke for the 5 glorious seasons he gave me, but I think that we can all tell from the end of S5 that he was done, ready to say goodbye and move on. (Despite it's over-the-top sappy-ness, I really liked "Swan Song" and I accept that Chuck is God, even if I wouldn't have done that.) But the truth right now is that the show is trying to find a new rhythm, and for those of us attached to the old rhythm, this is distressing. Okay, I'll tone down the drama-queen. Not "distressing," but rather, vexing.
We are 5 episodes in S6 and so far things have been incredibly uneven. The plausibility to Sam returning from Hell got stretched a bit too far by the sheer randomness of Samuel Campbell (ya know, their grandfather) being "pulled down" from Heaven. (WTF?) The opening sequence in "Exile on Main Street" highlighting Dean's average (and as far as I'm concerned soul-crushing) life with Lisa was well done, but that indicated that they were developing a semi-functional life together, so how on earth are we supposed to remotely believe that Lisa would be cool with him hunting and just showing up when he can. I mean, seriously? (And we all saw how well that worked out last episode.) The opening of "Live Free or Twihard" was probably the best Twilight parody ever, and if they had gone for the funny with the rest of the episode it wouldn't have been so terrible, but they didn't and we were subjected to one of the worst episodes of this show. (The list now stands: 1)Racist killer truck, 2) Ghost ship, 3) Vampire Dean.)
The best episode so far has been "Weekend at Bobby's" and since Jensen directed it (good job btw dude) we basically got an entire episode devoted to an awesome, but secondary, character. I'm not complaining, I adore Bobby. I think it was great to get a picture of his life as every hunter's bitch, and I wanted to high-five him when he chewed out Sam and Dean for being all complain-y about each other, it was a good release of frustration for character, crew, and audience alike. That episode is the kind of episode that made Supernatural a can't-miss show for me. Both funny and frightening, the emotional focus of the episode fit into the flow of the show, but the story focus was a specific problem that could be finished up by the end of the episode. It didn't have anything to do with "Alpha" demons, Sam and Dean came through and saved the damsel in distress (aka Bobby), and we were invested in what happened.
Obviously I'm holding onto my hope that Supernatural can work out the kinks and make it through this transition. Fingers crossed for tonight.
The TV Girl
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- I guess you would like to know a little bit about the person making all these proclamations upon good taste and horrid characters. I'm Andrea and when I was 15 I fell in love. An hour after meeting "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" I was forever altered in the way only love can, and I never questioned for one minute afterwards that television offered me an amazing chance to experience lives and moments that I could never imagine. So now, when I'm not getting distracted by my real life, I write about TV. I also read, am finishing a Master's degree in English Literature, travel, am attempting to learn vegan cooking, am the 5th of 6 children, and drive my roommate nuts by constantly cleaning our already clean apartment. Now that we're old friends, time for you to take my opinions as the be all and end all.
1 comment:
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you've said here, especially about Weekend at Bobby's being the best of the new season so far.
But there's something else that the show has lost for me, I think both because of the progression of the story and because I've watched every season close to ten times in my efforts to get others to watch it.
Supernatural no longer scares me. It still shocks me, with wonderfully new and gruesome deaths each episode (I think "The Third Man" gave me a permanent phobia of locusts), and there are still plenty of moments where I am amazed at what the more powerful supernatural creatures are capable of. But after 5 seasons with Sam and Dean, I feel like I've seen almost everything that can go bump in the night, and I know how they are going to fight those things. I know that Sam and Dean will never stay dead for more than an episode at the longest. Bobby found a way to kill demons without Ruby's knife or the Colt. Cas has been ganking angels for over a season now. What is there left to be afraid of?
I miss watching an episode and thinking, "Holy shit, that lake/hotel/truck is killing people! They're getting tossed around like ping-pong balls! That's scary!" All we have left in this season are monsters out of their natural habitat, more angel/demon politics (which I'm really bored with), and the mystery of who put Sam and Sam back in meat suits on Earth. But we know the answer to the last one: the writers did it, so there could be a 6th season.
I will, of course, keep watching, laughing, cursing and loving the show, but I really miss Dean and Sam being the amateur hunters that made me love the show in the first place.
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