Supernatural - Sin City
Oct. 26th, 2007 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficSo…Supernatural.
So far this season I have not been all that pleased. We've gotten three iffy mytharc eps and one wacky ep and it looks like next week will be more wacky fun. Not that I hate wacky on principle—I really liked last week (though I have not been as much of a fan of the previous humor episodes)—but I miss the solid horror stories week to week. That's what the show was conceived as: drive in to a new horror film every week. And that hasn't happened for a while.
You know what I also miss? Having the show end with Sam and Dean. It's a noticeable difference when we don't get a tag scene between the brothers, as we didn't this week. I always feel unresolved. And yes, this is yet another reason to dislike Ruby—her scenes are replacing the traditional Sam and Dean scenes.
This episode had plenty of moments that I liked, but nothing gelled. When they first trapped Dean and the demon together, I thought it would be awesome. Like All Quiet on the Western Front, or "Una Salus Victus" on Andromeda or "Common Ground" on Stargate: Atlantis, there's a long story-telling tradition of forcing the arch enemies to confront each other and perhaps find common ground. On SGA, they worked together. On Andromeda, the moments of camaraderie made it all the more terrible when Beka had to kill the enemy soldier to save her own life.
Here, we got….exposition. All that potential for drama, and we got convoluted pseudo-religious exposition. I can see the writers in the writers room: "Gee! We have a ton of world-building to do this season, with this convoluted demon mythology. How are we ever going to fit all that exposition in?" "I know! Let's lock Dean in a box with a hot chick and make him talk for twenty minutes."
Note to writers: Dean is not made for talking.
He gave up way too easily here, as did the demon. She could cave in the basement but not break the devil's trap, as we've seen them do before? And what is with Sam and Dean having no idea what's going on once the possession theory was disproved? They saw demons influence human behavior just three episodes ago. I remember it, why don't they?
All of this reveals a fundamental problem in the show right now: lazy writing. The writers are putting together good emotional arcs and good basic plots and just slacking off in the execution. It just feels like it's lacking that spark that truly engages me in the story.
That being said, things I loved in this ep:
-Dean not knowing the latin. Adorable. Don't really believe it—I mean, he's fighting an army of demons and still needs the book? He doesn't have a basic exorcism memorized? But the actual scene: hi-larious. Sam's so gonna kick his ass for that later.
-I love Bobby! The more I think about it, the more I see Bobby as the complete opposite of their father. He's a replacement father figure to be sure, but he couldn't be more different. Bobby is permissive where John was strict; Bobby is there when you need him where John's relationship with his sons is defined by his absences; Bobby is affectionate where John was withholding; Bobby's relatioinship with the boys is easy where John's was fraught. It makes so much sense that the Winchesters gravitate to Bobby.
-Along those lines, where are Ellen and Jo?
-Ah, Dean and hookers.
-Fit her ass on a nickle? What, Dean? I don't even know what that means.
-Sam's failed break-in was adorable. And why didn't he run when he left? He just seemed to be walking away. Also—turn cellphone to vibrate before illegally breaking and entering.
Hmm. It just occurred to me that it makes no sense, Dean leaving with the demon without telling Sam, when he was supposed to be meeting Sam, if he know she was possessed. This just hearkens back to the moment at the end of the changeling episode where both boys found something (the kids, the momma changeling) and neither called for the other's help. Where'd the teamwork go, boys?
As for the Boy King thing, yeah I can get behind that. Especially since it gives me a way to justify Ruby's presence. See, if she's just a flunky, still clinging to Sam as the Boy King, brown-nosing, basically, I can tolerate her a lot better. That makes her into a sycophant, and anything that makes her less oh-so-special is good in my book. Think of her like Darla in the pilot of Buffy. You know, the vamp who so mindlessly followed the Master's bidding that she got staked. That's kind of the direction I'd like it to go. (Yes, I know it won't, but let me deal with her existence on the show any way I can.)
In conclusion, the show's losing me. I'll still watch, sure, but the passion is slowly being smothered by the consistently tepid writing.
So far this season I have not been all that pleased. We've gotten three iffy mytharc eps and one wacky ep and it looks like next week will be more wacky fun. Not that I hate wacky on principle—I really liked last week (though I have not been as much of a fan of the previous humor episodes)—but I miss the solid horror stories week to week. That's what the show was conceived as: drive in to a new horror film every week. And that hasn't happened for a while.
You know what I also miss? Having the show end with Sam and Dean. It's a noticeable difference when we don't get a tag scene between the brothers, as we didn't this week. I always feel unresolved. And yes, this is yet another reason to dislike Ruby—her scenes are replacing the traditional Sam and Dean scenes.
This episode had plenty of moments that I liked, but nothing gelled. When they first trapped Dean and the demon together, I thought it would be awesome. Like All Quiet on the Western Front, or "Una Salus Victus" on Andromeda or "Common Ground" on Stargate: Atlantis, there's a long story-telling tradition of forcing the arch enemies to confront each other and perhaps find common ground. On SGA, they worked together. On Andromeda, the moments of camaraderie made it all the more terrible when Beka had to kill the enemy soldier to save her own life.
Here, we got….exposition. All that potential for drama, and we got convoluted pseudo-religious exposition. I can see the writers in the writers room: "Gee! We have a ton of world-building to do this season, with this convoluted demon mythology. How are we ever going to fit all that exposition in?" "I know! Let's lock Dean in a box with a hot chick and make him talk for twenty minutes."
Note to writers: Dean is not made for talking.
He gave up way too easily here, as did the demon. She could cave in the basement but not break the devil's trap, as we've seen them do before? And what is with Sam and Dean having no idea what's going on once the possession theory was disproved? They saw demons influence human behavior just three episodes ago. I remember it, why don't they?
All of this reveals a fundamental problem in the show right now: lazy writing. The writers are putting together good emotional arcs and good basic plots and just slacking off in the execution. It just feels like it's lacking that spark that truly engages me in the story.
That being said, things I loved in this ep:
-Dean not knowing the latin. Adorable. Don't really believe it—I mean, he's fighting an army of demons and still needs the book? He doesn't have a basic exorcism memorized? But the actual scene: hi-larious. Sam's so gonna kick his ass for that later.
-I love Bobby! The more I think about it, the more I see Bobby as the complete opposite of their father. He's a replacement father figure to be sure, but he couldn't be more different. Bobby is permissive where John was strict; Bobby is there when you need him where John's relationship with his sons is defined by his absences; Bobby is affectionate where John was withholding; Bobby's relatioinship with the boys is easy where John's was fraught. It makes so much sense that the Winchesters gravitate to Bobby.
-Along those lines, where are Ellen and Jo?
-Ah, Dean and hookers.
-Fit her ass on a nickle? What, Dean? I don't even know what that means.
-Sam's failed break-in was adorable. And why didn't he run when he left? He just seemed to be walking away. Also—turn cellphone to vibrate before illegally breaking and entering.
Hmm. It just occurred to me that it makes no sense, Dean leaving with the demon without telling Sam, when he was supposed to be meeting Sam, if he know she was possessed. This just hearkens back to the moment at the end of the changeling episode where both boys found something (the kids, the momma changeling) and neither called for the other's help. Where'd the teamwork go, boys?
As for the Boy King thing, yeah I can get behind that. Especially since it gives me a way to justify Ruby's presence. See, if she's just a flunky, still clinging to Sam as the Boy King, brown-nosing, basically, I can tolerate her a lot better. That makes her into a sycophant, and anything that makes her less oh-so-special is good in my book. Think of her like Darla in the pilot of Buffy. You know, the vamp who so mindlessly followed the Master's bidding that she got staked. That's kind of the direction I'd like it to go. (Yes, I know it won't, but let me deal with her existence on the show any way I can.)
In conclusion, the show's losing me. I'll still watch, sure, but the passion is slowly being smothered by the consistently tepid writing.