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Supernatural 3x12
I think Supernatural and I are sort of drifting apart.
I don't hate the show, or resent it. I just don't really *care* anymore. Last week's "Mystery Spot" was the first episode since, possibly, "Bad Day at Black Rock" that I've really, truly enjoyed, as opposed to enjoying a moment here and a moment there and being generally unmoved by the episode as a whole.
So what's *wrong*? Believe me, I've been asking myself that.
Part of it (as I've discussed in past entries/comments) is that Sam and Dean's relationship has been explored in so much depth in the last two and a half seasons that it's losing its ability to really draw me in. I delight in the anticipation of never *quite* getting there -- reading the spaces in between what they say and do, to figure out what they really mean. SPN just doesn't really have that anymore. It's all out there in the open, and I'm not feeling that delicious sense of anticipation anymore. Not to mention that in some cases, the more I find out about a character, the less I actually *like* that character -- this has been happening with both Sam and Dean this season. What's actually under the hood is not nearly as interesting as the fun of speculating what *might* be down there.
Because we've had so *much* of the deep emotional stuff and the angst, I'm craving episodes that are just FUN -- fast and engrossing, giving me something to concentrate on other than the relationship between the boys, which is rapidly losing its sparkle. What I really want right now is a stronger supporting cast, and more storylines involving the characters *around* Sam and Dean. I loved the Roadhouse last season; I want to explore their world and the other people in it. I want to see them interact with more people than just each other.
And there's the area where the show is really letting me down. It's become so horribly, painfully predictable about killing off its supporting cast. I *knew* Hendrickson was going to die, in the same unpleasant way that I *knew* there was some sort of appalling tragedy in Bobby's past involving a dead woman -- because that's just how things are done on this show. (Y'know, I don't think there's a single show I watch that doesn't have *something* that makes me roll my eyes and think "Oh, show, you could do better at [race, gender, politics, alternate sexualities, whatever]." But I don't think there's a show I'm currently watching that bothers me as badly on that score as SPN does.) It's gotten to the point that, not only do I NOT have the supporting cast that I want, but I really don't want to get emotionally invested in anybody other than Sam and Dean (and, okay, Bobby; I just can't help myself). They're almost inevitably going to die, so why bother?
I'm also finding the whole demon war storyline kind of dull, which, on some level, really amuses me. Armageddon should not be boring! And yet, it is. Last season's mega-arc were a little too angsty and emo for me at times, but at least it was genuinely interesting. This season, not so much. That, I guess, could just be me -- I don't really go for the dark, post-apocalyptic, "everyone is your enemy, trust no one, we're all gonna die so we may as well be assholes" sort of thing.
Which is pretty much where this season seems to have gotten stuck.
Okay, I go for narrative shades of gray, truly I do. I don't want my heroes to wear white hats all the time. As a reader/viewer, I like to see good people getting stuck in nasty situations where it's impossible to get out without getting your hands dirty. I *like* the trope of a hero(ine) struggling to maintain his integrity and fight the good fight in the face of a dark and dirty world that wants to drag him down -- the trope that they seem to *want* to explore with Dean this season.
But the results, in this case, are just so dark and unpleasant that I occasionally want to scrub my eyeballs after watching an episode. This week, for example, Dean refusing to sacrifice the virgin, even in the face of a demonic army, was pretty cool, as was their "mass exorcism over the PA" plan. But, uh, in between those two scenes, what about all those people that they blew away? Innocent people with demons inside them? I really *miss* season one Dean, with his determination to protect everyone no matter what. I think this episode in particular (but the last few, as well) have really hammered home the point that they're in a war, and have to make sacrifices in order to win. I can recognize the validity of that, as both a narrative point of view and a real-world philosophy, but at the same time, I don't want to *watch* it, if that makes any sense. As a viewer, I don't want to see Sam and Dean grow darker and angrier and more callous, more like the demons they're fighting. I'll willingly put myself through the emotional cheese grater if I'm getting something really powerful *back* -- I don't shy away from reading or watching something unpleasant just because it's not happy fluffy candyland. But SPN is just not good enough to make it worth it. I don't feel like I'm going to achieve any deep insights into human nature or learn something interesting about the real world by watching it. It's just fun brain candy, and the point where it stops being fun is the point where I don't see much point in continuing to watch.
Despite all of the above, though, I'm not sure if any of this *really* explains my loss of interest in the show -- there might not be anything more to it than the show simply not doing it for me anymore. All I know is that I'm not really sure if I'm going to resume watching it when it comes back from hiatus. Maybe I just need to take a break.
I don't hate the show, or resent it. I just don't really *care* anymore. Last week's "Mystery Spot" was the first episode since, possibly, "Bad Day at Black Rock" that I've really, truly enjoyed, as opposed to enjoying a moment here and a moment there and being generally unmoved by the episode as a whole.
So what's *wrong*? Believe me, I've been asking myself that.
Part of it (as I've discussed in past entries/comments) is that Sam and Dean's relationship has been explored in so much depth in the last two and a half seasons that it's losing its ability to really draw me in. I delight in the anticipation of never *quite* getting there -- reading the spaces in between what they say and do, to figure out what they really mean. SPN just doesn't really have that anymore. It's all out there in the open, and I'm not feeling that delicious sense of anticipation anymore. Not to mention that in some cases, the more I find out about a character, the less I actually *like* that character -- this has been happening with both Sam and Dean this season. What's actually under the hood is not nearly as interesting as the fun of speculating what *might* be down there.
Because we've had so *much* of the deep emotional stuff and the angst, I'm craving episodes that are just FUN -- fast and engrossing, giving me something to concentrate on other than the relationship between the boys, which is rapidly losing its sparkle. What I really want right now is a stronger supporting cast, and more storylines involving the characters *around* Sam and Dean. I loved the Roadhouse last season; I want to explore their world and the other people in it. I want to see them interact with more people than just each other.
And there's the area where the show is really letting me down. It's become so horribly, painfully predictable about killing off its supporting cast. I *knew* Hendrickson was going to die, in the same unpleasant way that I *knew* there was some sort of appalling tragedy in Bobby's past involving a dead woman -- because that's just how things are done on this show. (Y'know, I don't think there's a single show I watch that doesn't have *something* that makes me roll my eyes and think "Oh, show, you could do better at [race, gender, politics, alternate sexualities, whatever]." But I don't think there's a show I'm currently watching that bothers me as badly on that score as SPN does.) It's gotten to the point that, not only do I NOT have the supporting cast that I want, but I really don't want to get emotionally invested in anybody other than Sam and Dean (and, okay, Bobby; I just can't help myself). They're almost inevitably going to die, so why bother?
I'm also finding the whole demon war storyline kind of dull, which, on some level, really amuses me. Armageddon should not be boring! And yet, it is. Last season's mega-arc were a little too angsty and emo for me at times, but at least it was genuinely interesting. This season, not so much. That, I guess, could just be me -- I don't really go for the dark, post-apocalyptic, "everyone is your enemy, trust no one, we're all gonna die so we may as well be assholes" sort of thing.
Which is pretty much where this season seems to have gotten stuck.
Okay, I go for narrative shades of gray, truly I do. I don't want my heroes to wear white hats all the time. As a reader/viewer, I like to see good people getting stuck in nasty situations where it's impossible to get out without getting your hands dirty. I *like* the trope of a hero(ine) struggling to maintain his integrity and fight the good fight in the face of a dark and dirty world that wants to drag him down -- the trope that they seem to *want* to explore with Dean this season.
But the results, in this case, are just so dark and unpleasant that I occasionally want to scrub my eyeballs after watching an episode. This week, for example, Dean refusing to sacrifice the virgin, even in the face of a demonic army, was pretty cool, as was their "mass exorcism over the PA" plan. But, uh, in between those two scenes, what about all those people that they blew away? Innocent people with demons inside them? I really *miss* season one Dean, with his determination to protect everyone no matter what. I think this episode in particular (but the last few, as well) have really hammered home the point that they're in a war, and have to make sacrifices in order to win. I can recognize the validity of that, as both a narrative point of view and a real-world philosophy, but at the same time, I don't want to *watch* it, if that makes any sense. As a viewer, I don't want to see Sam and Dean grow darker and angrier and more callous, more like the demons they're fighting. I'll willingly put myself through the emotional cheese grater if I'm getting something really powerful *back* -- I don't shy away from reading or watching something unpleasant just because it's not happy fluffy candyland. But SPN is just not good enough to make it worth it. I don't feel like I'm going to achieve any deep insights into human nature or learn something interesting about the real world by watching it. It's just fun brain candy, and the point where it stops being fun is the point where I don't see much point in continuing to watch.
Despite all of the above, though, I'm not sure if any of this *really* explains my loss of interest in the show -- there might not be anything more to it than the show simply not doing it for me anymore. All I know is that I'm not really sure if I'm going to resume watching it when it comes back from hiatus. Maybe I just need to take a break.
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I know exactly what you mean there. I used to consider SPN as one of my shiny shows, where it's all about the entertainment and not much about the actual world (beyond the usual family and self sacrifice, etc...)
I knew SPN is pretty popular with deployed soldiers. And we've been told times and again how the boys are soldiers/warriors shaped by John to fight the good fight. But I never realised (until very recently) that the actual living soldiers identify with the hunters, that Sam and Dean stand as metaphores for them: the fighting and the violence, obviously, but also the belief that they're doing the right thing (the doubt if they're doing the right thing), the misunderstanding by the general population, the thankless life, the bonding with your fellow hunter, the knowledge that the world is a scarier place than what people generally believe and if you do your job right they'll never know, etc...
Whith all that this season has been getting darker, this further insight depressed me. I thought about "In the valley of Elay" (movie about returning soldiers) and thought about Sam and Dean in that context.
While it ultimately does not harsh my squee (my squee must have the hide of a rhino!), it does mean that I'm finding it difficult to place SPN among my shiny shows anymore, which I think means that I'm changing my whole perspective to the series in order to keep enjoying it as much as always. Hopefully this doesn not mean that I'll take on another fandom to fill up my shiny quota, or I'll seriously have no RL anymore ;P
In other (hopefully happier) news, how's NCIS coming along for you? Have you kept watching or did you lay off?
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I don't necessarily shy away from dark stories just because they're dark, but that isn't why I started watching SPN, and it's not what I want from the show. And you know, that's especially sad, if soldiers are watching the show for escape, and identifying with it ... that's sad, that they're taking it the direction they are.
NCIS -- we're just finishing up season 4. I was actually going to write up a post on it sometime this weekend (if there's time). I will definitely say that Tony and Ziva have both grown on me tremendously over the end of S3 and S4!
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My own opinions are pretty much jiving with yours, except that I'd basically disengaged from SPN by the end of last season (my Who-squee blew it away) and never re-engaged this season (especially since I got a wee bit distracted by extremely, extremely shiny Pegasus shenanigans!)...been enjoying what I can, but not really involved enough to get up much frustration. But, yeah. The show's just not, well, good enough to pull off the shades-of-gray it's doing; the plots are pedestrian, the themes are dark but pretty mundane. The boys are still lovely, but candy with a bitter center; what's the point?
And yup, I liked Henriksen (however that's spelled) but yeah, knew he wasn't going to make it, by how quickly he came around to the Winchesters' side...they were just writing him off, tying up that loose end, which is a shame, because last season it seemed like they might have ideas for him.
(All that being said, were they actually killing the possessed people? I remarked the same watching the ep, but then
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The show's just not, well, good enough to pull off the shades-of-gray it's doing; the plots are pedestrian, the themes are dark but pretty mundane. The boys are still lovely, but candy with a bitter center; what's the point?
EXACTLY. I mean, I'll endure a whole lot of darkness and emotional distress on behalf of the characters, if the payoff is worth it. Like, oh, this is an extreme example, but Holocaust narratives and things of that nature -- I wouldn't shy away from reading them just because they're dark, because these are facets of life that I need to expose myself to. Or "Grave of the Fireflies", things like that, which are really enjoyable and beautiful, despite being painful and unhappy. But SPN is just not deep enough and good enough to make it worthwhile, at least not for me. I gave up on "Lost" for the same reason. It's brain candy, and, as you so aptly put it, "candy with a bitter center".
And yup, I liked Henriksen (however that's spelled) but yeah, knew he wasn't going to make it, by how quickly he came around to the Winchesters' side...they were just writing him off, tying up that loose end, which is a shame, because last season it seemed like they might have ideas for him.
Yeah, I really liked him, and I really loved seeing him find out the truth about the boys' world -- but at the same time, I absolutely knew he was going to die before the end of the episode, and it was awfully disheartening to see my prediction confirmed. It's just not worth it to get attached to anyone on this show other than Sam and Dean, and Sam and Dean have kinda lost me this season, which ... kinda leaves me without a reason to watch!
You and
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Armageddon should not be boring, indeed. I was far more intrigued with the idea of Mary's connection to the demon, and why have all her friends and family been killed off question that was raised early in the season--and totally and completely dropped. This idiot "demon war" is the worst thing this show has done. Get back to the urban legends and hauntings, guys, and forget the freaking demons.
Then again, I'm of the firm opinion that they lost something vital to the show when they killed John off, JDM's availability notwithstanding, and Bobby has not been a suitable replacement. Which leads to the only way supporting cast gets to survive: Be white and be named after an executive producer. Oh, and be young, network-mandated T&A. Meg I could believe as a threat first season. She was awesome. Ruby? Not so much. In fact, not at all.
And don't even get me started on the sheer idiocy of killing off ALL of their supporting characters. Hendrikson's death was a stupid, stupid move--just like killing off Ash and Andy last season, and never bringing Sarah back from first season.
SOunds like you're at the place with SPN that I am with SGA, though. Right now, I could care less what SGA does; even bringing Carson back doesn't fix anything because they so totally broke things before hand--and they're not bringing him back full time. (I pointed out their newest kick-ass military cast member to my fifteen-year-old son, and his first comment, TOTALLY unprompted, was a totally appalled, "She looks like she's fourteen!" Which is totally the point of casting her, as far as M&M seem to be concerned.)
Anyway. Don't worry about harshing my squee; if it's that delicate that it can be harshed so easily, it's not true squee. ;-)
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LOL! Just figured I'd better give fair warning ... :D
The demon storyline was SO much more interesting last season. Even there, it faltered at times, but it was really fascinating and mysterious -- the chosen children, the mystery surrounding Mary (never explained), the YED's designs on Sam, the Colt. This season, it feels more like a retread of "Buffy" without the humor and charm. This storyline's mega-arc centers around a plot that we already know the outcome of -- obviously, Dean doesn't die, so he gets out of his contract somehow. Rather than the genuinely suspenseful mystery of Sam's powers and the Winchester family history, which have now been dropped like they never existed, all our mysteries this season have to do with new characters we haven't really been given any reason to care about. It's vaguely interesting finding out more about how demons work, but I'm with you: I want to get back to the road trip, back to urban legends and peeking into the hidden underbelly of small-town USA. That's the show I fell for, the show I want to watch!
There was a really interesting discussion at
In any case, it seems like SPN is going places that I, as a viewer, don't really want to go, and I'm pulling away because of that. I think that adding a consistent supporting cast around the boys -- which is what I THOUGHT they were doing last season -- would help a lot, but right now it seems like they're doing the exact opposite. (For some reason I don't really think of Ruby and Bela as supporting cast! I'm not sure why ... it's just that they feel so *forced*, where characters like Bobby and Ellen and Hendrikson felt like they followed naturally from the world the boys inhabited.)
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I loved the idea of Sam and Dean on the run from the law as well as hunting. It added more danger to their world and this last episode disappointed me big time when they killed off Hendrickson after making him not their enemy. :(
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One of the things that made me like the show was this sprawling world around them, with people who drifted in and out of their lives, and recurring places like the Roadhouse or Bobby's wrecking yard. They're really losing that this season, and not replacing it with anything I like.
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That and I was reminded again why I love SGA so much :D so it became more fun to watch than SPN. Recently though, I've found myself fangirling for SPN more (It's just slightly below SGA now in enjoyment levels now.)
I think perhaps a break would help you; it did me, I just sat back and took the show as it came those few months, and now I like it more.
Do have to agree with you, the deaths are just... wah. I think I said somewhere a couple days before the episode aired that Hendrickson better not die, or I'd never allow myself to like a guest star again. Well, of course, he did so now I can't like anyone anymore. That's just sad haha.
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Yes! And I wanted Hendrickson to survive so much, too! That was just a huge waste of a character.
This week, for example, Dean refusing to sacrifice the virgin, even in the face of a demonic army, was pretty cool, as was their "mass exorcism over the PA" plan. But, uh, in between those two scenes, what about all those people that they blew away? Innocent people with demons inside them? I really *miss* season one Dean, with his determination to protect everyone no matter what.
First I'm not sure if the salt bullets killed people or just injured/knocked them out. But in general, I agree with you on this point. There are people in the fandom who want Sam to go over to the dark side already and I totally don't want that. If he'd sacrificed Virgin Mary there I would have lost all ability to respect him at that point, seriously. We watch these things to see our heroes, not murderers, and that's a dangerous line they're walking now.
As a viewer, I don't want to see Sam and Dean grow darker and angrier and more callous, more like the demons they're fighting.
Yes. Agrew with you here too.
In general, I'm a bit wary of SPN right now because I know they can take it in that direction. But I'm giving it a chance, and I do love the individual episodes still. It would take a while before I lost interest in the show -- the way I temporarily lost interest in SGA when they were nuking everyone in sight and torturing civilians for information and just being generally stupid (about Michael) -- so for now I'm just trying to enjoy the ride.
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Especially when I'm just stopping by to agree with everything you're saying! I was so disappointed by "Jus in Bello" - "Mystery Spot" got my hopes all raised, and then I heard good things about the previews, and - it turns out that, no, it wasn't a happy occasion at all, because now Henriksen is gone, too. It's... not funny. Actually, it's skeezy - I won't touch the race issues with a ten foot pole, and others have written much more insightful and intelligent things about this than me, but the show really is doing a Madonna/Whore thing with their women (come on - a Catholic virgin girl, can we get more damsel-in-distress-y?)... and on top of that, killing of interesting potential allies? UNCOOL. They've been doing it ever since they killed of Father Jim in the scene he was introduced in, but still. It bugs me like a queen bug poking me with a bug stick!
Sigh. Show. I could go on, but -
I think Supernatural and I are sort of drifting apart?
Yeah. Same here. Too bad. (But at least I still have SGA! *pets the shiny*)
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SPN is one of my fun shows, in that I'm a fan but not an obsessive fan like I am with SGA and CSI:NY. In fact - and I cannot explain why this was - I'd almost lost interest in the show during that year of major hype when it was all people could talk about. But I think that was more everyone trying to compare SGA to it.
Anyways, digressing, sorry. I still enjoy the show, but it's no longer quite the same. For me, it's more that I miss the good-old-fashioned monster hunts of season one and two. I miss them going to some town, learning of disappearances, Sam looking up lore while Dean says smart-alec things as he readys the needed weapons. The episodes of late have been very - for lack of a better word - "emo" for me, and though I do adore good angst, I would also like a little something light in between (i.e. a good-old-fashioned monster hunt and a short break from all the doom and gloom).
I also have to agree that I don't like the shows kill-happy motif going on. The poor boys can't get a break when it comes to keeping allies around, and I would personally like to see a few more hunters help them out without it ending in that hunter being killed off.
And, I know I probably shouldn't say this and hope it isn't true (crap, I hope it isn't true) but my sister and I - who is a rabid SPN fan - get the squirmy, bad feeling that the writers might try to kill Bobby off. Just a feeling, mind you, and not based on anything we read or heard. I'm basing this on other shows where characters similar to Bobby (relationship-wise to the main characters) were killed off for angst purposes. You know how shows get and what they do thinking it will generate more viewership (ha!). I'm not saying it will happen - hopefully the writers are smarter than that - I just wouldn't be surprised if it did.
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