(no subject)

[ivyfic]

I enjoyed this episode, but I'm with dotfic. It bothered me.

Why did it bother me? Bad X-Files flashback.

-We are going to keep this secret from you for as long as possible because when you learn it, you'll realize it kind of sucks!
-Oh noes! The evil alien demonic conspiracy is testing out its evil alien demonic bio weapons by wiping out an entire town. Do you think they have a master plan?? I think the writers want us to think they do, but I suspect the real answer is...no. The writers are stalling for time. They'll retcon something in a season or two.
-OMG – it's the one that got away! We'll never know.

Do not go down that road, Kripke. Don't do it. I could take it in X-Files because I started watching in season 6 when the mytharc already had more plot holes than swiss cheese. So far your mytharc makes sense. Don't screw that shit up.

This episode reminded me a lot of the season 2 episode of X-Files: "Blood." In that episode Mulder encounters a string of mass murders in a small town that he slowly realizes is being triggered by a bizarre combination of poisoning and subliminal messages...er... The point is, this town is being used as a test case by the big bad conspiracy. At the end, Mulder averts the final tragedy but fails to uncover the conspiracy, instead receiving a cryptic "BYEBYE" message on his phone. Cue crane shot – Mulder alone, again, back at square one, with no evidence of the greater conspiracy but knowing that this was just a prelude.

As an episode, it's fantastic. Until you step back and realize that there is no possible way the conspiracy can make any sense at all. Not in this episode. And it's clear the writers never had a plan for making it work. They were just using the "conspiracy" as a way to erase their plot holes and add a touch of the sinister.

Same shit here. The moment they start technobabbling with a virus no one has ever seen before...oh, such an X-Files flashback. Please don't mix your technobabbles. Supernatural-appropriate technobabble: demonic possession, biblical plague. Supernatural-inappropriate (but X-Files-appropriate) technobabble: new type of virus, unexplainable chemical substances. If they start talking about whole new elements and DNA base pairs not found in nature I will reach through my TV screen and kick Kripke myself.

Dean: Do you know what type of virus?
Doctor Lady: Wait, just let me roll out my portable scanning electron microscope for ya and take a look, shall I?
Dean, you are not Scully. Please stop trying. Please stop taking your GED and pretending you know jack shit about medicine. And doctor lady, please look at him like he has three eyes when he asks you to do physically impossible things? Don't humor him, you'll only encourage it.

Writers – stop this now. I mean it. You still write excellent interaction between the brothers – play to your strengths. Leave massive conspiracy plot-arcs to Joss Whedon who has proved he can handle them.

So that trakkie will not kick my ass -- grade A angst. I will rewatch and enjoy that and ignore the parts where Kripke is channeling Chris Carter.

Comments

[sasha-b.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

God, I do agree with most of that.

I also enjoyed the Sam/Dean angst. But cliffhangers???? Come on. *groan*

[decidedly.livejournal.com]

I am so in love with you and your brain right now. Truly. In fact, I'd totally buy your brain dinner and let it order as much champagne as it wanted without glancing at the price, not once.

Dean, you are not Scully. Please stop trying. Please stop taking your GED and pretending you know jack shit about medicine.

And please order some tiramisu, too. *dies*

[dotfic.livejournal.com]

*collapses with relief on your episode review*

There is no mytharc. There is only Sam and Dean.

Normally the X-Files ripping off and the anvils and the poor plotting doesn't get in the way of my angst-and-squee. It's not that any of the flaws in this ep are anything new to SPN but something went wrong somewhere and it was more overboard than usual. Poor execution on the zombie threat; and they failed to make Dean's descent into violence make any freakin' sense.

[andromakhe001.livejournal.com]

Dean: Do you know what type of virus?
Doctor Lady: Wait, just let me roll out my portable scanning electron microscope for ya and take a look, shall I?
Dean, you are not Scully. Please stop trying. Please stop taking your GED and pretending you know jack shit about medicine.

I agree with your post for the most part but have a different interpretation of this. I didn't get the sense that Dean was asking because he knew anything about viruses but because he wanted her to explain what she knew. Just because he isn't a doctor doesn't mean that her explaining whatever information she had about the virus, what type it was, how it behaves, etc might not be helpful to them somehow or give them some sort of clue. I mean I'm not a doctor but if I had a virus, I'd certainly ask the doctor what type. :) I don't see this instance as being much different than that. Any information they can get might help, however unlikely it might seem.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm less making fun of Dean for asking than I am the writers for bad science babble. I can take really bad science on shows like Stargate or Star Trek where the physics is clearly not earth physics but here? Come on. GP's don't have the means to identify unknown viruses, especially brand new ones. I'm even sketchy on how she knows by looking under a microscope that it's left behind sulfur. At least when Dean asks her if she can cure it she looks at him like "Wha...?" Dean seems to have mistaken her for the CDC.

In the greater context of the story it's even more annoying because they're trying to set it up like an X-Files episode where there's an unknown contagion and the infected must die, but on the X-Files you always had Scully giving really good technobabble to explain why. If they had to kill the infected, you believed her. Dean here jumps to the same conclusion based on nothing at all really. So his summary execution of infected townspeople just doesn't make any sense since the writers haven't given any of the characters any reason to believe it's incurable, or that restraint wouldn't work.