Thread: Supernatural
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Old 07-12-2010, 02:46 PM   #37
Apathy's_Child
 
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Join Date: Aug 2007
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K, so I finally got around to watching some, and consider 7 episodes a good enough run to decide it’s utter crap. Just a few of the things that sucked about it:

- Why is virtually every episode structured around them helping and saving a young attractive female? Seriously, every single one I’ve seen so far, to the point where you can pratically guess who’s gonna die and who’s not in the openers based on the criteria for the person they will eventually rescue. The only time this worked okay was in the one with that chick who used to play Fred in Angel – at least she can act well enough to not embarrass herself every time she opens her trap, which bring me to my next point.......

- While Desp already mentioned that the show doesn’t maintain a consistent standard of acting with the weekly incidental characters, I feel that these words constitute an understatement so gross in magnitude I literally will not sleep tonight if I don’t amend them: the extras are, almost without exception, fucking atrocious.....

- ..... Which wouldn’t be so bad if the dialogue weren’t so utterly uninspired. The bright spots were so few and far between, I really didn’t find the overall hamminess worth the wait. (Although I must admit, I did snort at Dean being restrained by cops while Sam did his po-faced shit by some forgettable victim’s hospitable bed, straining over going, “Yeah, there he is, I’m here for my brother. [big bright smile & wave] Brother!” ........ Okay, so not exactly Heller-worthy, but eh, it’s the way ya tell ‘em.)

- The sibling relationship was completely and utterly underdeveloped, and any potentially interesting avenues were quickly squashed to leave a formulaic process of two total bros-for-life hugging in the shower for approximately 85% of every episode. I was wondering if the doppelganger episode, when the monster takes on not only Dean’s face but his memories and resentments, was setting up some satisfying monster as metaphor angle, but nope – all forgotten the second the scene finished. The sad thing is, the writers obviously TRIED to pursue the monster as metaphor thing now and again (e.g. episode 7, the preacher hook-monster entity as a functionary of repressed revenge fantasy), but the substance when they attempt this kind of thing is so thin it’d lose an ana-comp with the cast of 90210.

- ** SPOILER** (probably doing any potential viewers a favour by ruining the pilot BEFORE they devote 40 mins of their life to it, but what the hell, I’m a fucking nice guy) Not that I would normally demand this from an otherwise satisfying viewing experience, but since they were clearly gagging to saturate the whole thing in sentiment, why did Sam get over the murder of his girlfriend so quickly? It was literally like: Step 1: dead loved one on ceiling bleeding all over his fucking FACE, which I think we can all agree would suck and lays the groundwork for some interesting repercussions which it then utterly fails to deliver; step 2: Sam chooses to take this out on the token skeptic in the following episode by bumping shoulders with him one time, like you did with that big kid you were too scared to fight properly but too much of a jackass to just walk away from in 2nd grade; step 3: Dean’s subsequent intervention, which lasts about eight seconds and contains all the emotional depth of a trip to Walmart, apparently fixes the problem; step 4: insert the occasional nightmare at random intervals to cover writer’s asses against charges of underplaying the whole love of Sam’s life being fucking DEAD thing. Otherwise, he is perfectly fine and barely seems to remember he ever HAD a girlfriend - except for the aforementioned nightmares, which I’m guessing are more about setting up the fact that we’ll soon discover Sam’s a seer or some shit, than the lingering trauma he’s otherwise clearly totally cool with.

Seriously, I think Gothicus set the bar too high in offering Breaking Bad and Mad Men as shows which piss over Supernatural. Fucking Buffy makes it look inspired.

The most annoying thing is, in the hands of good writers, this could be a pretty cool way to waste 40 minutes. Seeing something like that is somehow more frustrating than watching something with no redeeming features whatsoever.

Whew, that was long. Still, considering I only persevered with something I probably would have quit on by halfway through episode 2 on the basis of the praise given in this thread, I’m now a man of many grievances.
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Last edited by Apathy's_Child; 07-12-2010 at 02:49 PM. Reason: Changed "mostly crappy" to "utter crap" in opening line.
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