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Old 06-12-2010, 01:22 PM   #26
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You guys probably heard by now, but Supernatural is being made into an anime series!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...nched-in-japan
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Old 06-12-2010, 02:08 PM   #27
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I didn't know that. Sounds like a good idea, actually. Wonder if they'll change the lore and legends to reflect a more Asian mythology?
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Old 06-12-2010, 03:00 PM   #28
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From what they're saying while it will largely draw on the show, it will have original villains and episodes. Dean and Sam vs Oiwa sounds great, actually XD
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Old 06-12-2010, 03:21 PM   #29
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...

INTERESTING.

This could be awesome...it could be REALLY bad too.
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Old 06-12-2010, 03:40 PM   #30
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I'm being cautiously optimistic, Madhouse is the studio who's doing it. I wasn't a Death Note fan but at the same time it seems like it should be right up their alley.
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Old 06-12-2010, 08:54 PM   #31
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Hmmm ... I have a cautious "wait and see" attitude. The Wikipedia Supernatural article does mention a release schedule for Japan.

Meanwhile, I've been clicking through the episodes my DVR have been collecting, watching and deleting them as fast as I can, and I currently have 19 episodes in queue. Of those, I have 10 to watch before I get to "Lucifer Rising" which is the last episode of season five and the natural end to the series story arc ... and then I have "Pilot" to watch so from the 12th episode in queue on, I'll be starting from the series beginning.

Also, I've chosen not to delete two episodes, "Ghostfacers" and "Monster Movie" ... because they're both a bit different stylistically, they both amuse the hell out of me and they both stand rather independent of the ongoing story arc ("Monster Movie" even does away with the standard "what has gone before" flashback intro) so they might serve as a good introduction to the series for friends, as long as I explain that. Plus, I think I will be watching them again sometime soon.
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Old 06-13-2010, 07:11 PM   #32
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Sam: "You seem pretty cheery."

Dean: "Strippers, Sammy. Strippers. We are on an actual case involving strippers. Finally."

Ahahahahahahahahahaha!
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Old 06-14-2010, 08:58 AM   #33
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I am having nightmares of Dean running around copping feels and looking up skirts while his nose bleeds uncontrollably.

As the show focus's heavily on Christian mythos, I'm also wondering how the Japanese will handle that.

They have a tendency to just make shit up and slap biblical characters in just because they think it's cool and exotic.

But yeah, Ghostfacers is awesome. Have you checked out the webseries?
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Old 06-14-2010, 12:11 PM   #34
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Well, its only going to be the first two seasons that are covered. The first season wasn't too heavy in Christian mythos, and I admittedly can't remember the second season very well but I can only remember them dealing with demons. There's been a few animes that are something like Supernatural (Mononoke is about a demon hunter, Ghost Hunt had, well, ghost hunters who dealt with different types of spirits every week), so I bet it's mostly its going to be a monster of the week type thing.
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Old 06-14-2010, 01:25 PM   #35
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As long as it's not a "monster of the weak" type thing, I'm interested.

Speaking of monster of the week, that reminds me that I need to buy the original Night Stalker series on Amazon. I saw it got pretty cheap recently.
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Old 06-23-2010, 04:37 PM   #36
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Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!

I just finished "Lucifer Rising" and see the next episode I have in the DVR queue is "Pilot" ... so I've finished season 4, ending on the most dramatic cliffhanger imaginable, the expected release of Lucifer on earth and the start of the Apocalypse ... and now I've got season one to watch because TNT does not have rights to show season 5 yet.

Well, I guess I know what I'm ordering on Netflix next. Season five DVD's, coming up! LOL!
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Old 07-12-2010, 02:46 PM   #37
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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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Old 07-12-2010, 03:33 PM   #38
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I can't say I disagree with any point you make, and I'll admit that I watch it as a guilty pleasure while making a lot of allowances. It's true it has at its core the potential to be much more.

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Seeing something like that is somehow more frustrating than watching something with no redeeming features whatsoever.
I find by definition that is rarely true for me.

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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.
Well, to be fair, Depsanan did a pretty good job of detailing the program's shortcomings up front, and said he liked watching the show in spite of them. And it may be that I have a different perspective since I started on the thing in the middle of season three and did notice when I cycled around to the first episodes that they were a bit weaker (the bit about the death of Sam's girlfriend being so quickly forgotten struck me badly too), but I wouldn't say the peripheral characters get treated any better in later episodes. They just don't always resort to the chick of the week. And they get away with not exploring the relationship between the brothers time and time again by dodging behind the old "We're men and we don't talk about our feelings" line, and that always has bothered me. But I still enjoy it ... for what that's worth.

I am sorry you felt like it wasted some 280-odd minutes of your time. No, not felt ... it was a waste of your time.
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Old 07-12-2010, 04:02 PM   #39
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In fairness, much of the time I spend at work is essentially wasted, since there's very little to do besides look pretty. Luckily I was able to fit these into work hours, or definitely wouldn't have stuck it out for so long. At this point, it's more the principle than anything.

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I find by definition that is rarely true for me.
The issue I have is that those are the things I usually end up watching/reading/whatever to the end, whereas if something's an utterly iredeemable piece of shit, I can just turn it off without worrying it's going to pick up anytime now. The other frustrating thing is that I get this irrational urge to sit and rewrite them, the way I would have done it. Maybe I have a long and fruitful fanfiction career ahead of me - a horrifying prospect........

And although Desp did acknowledge numerous shortcomings, he also compared it to the work of Neil Gaiman, who I've never read but have heard is pretty damn good. That's false advertising in my book. Motherfucker owes me a dime.
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Old 07-12-2010, 04:07 PM   #40
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Yeah but he compared it to an episode in the last season, and I didn't follow it enough at first to tell you when, but it definitely got a billion times better. I didn't really start liking it until somewhere in the fourth season and didn't care enough for the first and second season to watch it. I think the first season they weren't really sure who their fanbase was or where they were going with it, and relied heavily on tired old tropes like damsels in distress, or the one I personally hate the most, utterly bitchy and hateful women who are supposed to be hot?
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Old 07-12-2010, 06:06 PM   #41
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M y experience was similar. I thought the 3rd and 4th season episodes I saw were interesting, but the 1st season episodes seemed very formulaic.

By the way, AC, there's a lot of programs on TV that have a good idea at the core of them but don't end up as good as most of us think they ought to. Television, more than any other medium, forces so many compromises on the creative process that I'm amazed anything good gets on the air at all. So I'm probably more forgiving of "oh what could have been" shows than you are. Mostly because I have no desire to go write television shows myself.

I was going to ask you about that, but you answered with the fanfiction line.


I do have a question for you, though. If the episodes of this show that you saw were crap, and Buffy is a notch above that, what in your opinion is a good prime-time live action supernatural ghost/monster hunter type of show? I'm not asking to be sarcastic, but to get your honest opinion.
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Old 07-13-2010, 03:38 AM   #42
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So is it worth starting with series 3? Is the quality of the storylines drastically different, or just marginally?

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By the way, AC, there's a lot of programs on TV that have a good idea at the core of them but don't end up as good as most of us think they ought to. Television, more than any other medium, forces so many compromises on the creative process that I'm amazed anything good gets on the air at all. So I'm probably more forgiving of "oh what could have been" shows than you are.
True. That's why I don't really watch TV except on recommendations, or from lucking onto things channel-hopping. My girlfriend and I don't even own a TV set - pretty unecessary, when you can get more or less everything online.

Last series I watched was Breaking Bad after getting it recommended - to be fair, most things were going to suck compared to that.

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Mostly because I have no desire to go write television shows myself. I was going to ask you about that, but you answered with the fanfiction line.
Nah, I was just being facetious about that. The wanting to rewrite it is just an irrational habit I get every time I see something - TV show, movie, piece of writing - that I feel has potential but just misses the mark. I have absolutely no desire to write for the screen in any way; I kind of feel that it's an inherently bastardized medium, given the number of factors you're held hostage to in bringing the project to fruition (something that concerned me when I started playwriting, though luckily I have a few good buddies with their hand in that shit whose ideas I can usually jam with. Still, I do sometimes have trouble reliquishing control of something I've written to someone else).

That's not to say a good movie or TV show can't ever be as good as a good novel in and of itself. Just that I think I'd bust a vein in my temple even in the unlikely event that I were lucky enough to catch a break doing that.

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I do have a question for you, though. If the episodes of this show that you saw were crap, and Buffy is a notch above that, what in your opinion is a good prime-time live action supernatural ghost/monster hunter type of show? I'm not asking to be sarcastic, but to get your honest opinion.
To be honest, I don't hate Buffy as much as I probably sounded like I do up there. it's not really my thing, but my girlfriend has a huge affection for it, and after being forced into some okay episodes I was forced to admit that I'd been unduly harsh on it. It's a decent show, with a satisfyingly tight and consistent mythology of its own, good characterization and a strong script. Personally I find it too juvenile, but that's the nature of the beast given its target audience, and it's good for what it is. It's certainly a lot more sophisticated than Supernatural - both morally, and in its use of the monster as metaphor.

As for your (very specific) question, I guess the only thing that really springs to mind are certain episodes of Angel. Somewhere between shameless attempts to emotionally manipulate the viewer and disappearing up its own ass, I think that show occasionally struck gold.

EDIT: You may think I'm stretching this a bit, but I thik the inclusion of Dr. Who would also be justifiable, since most the aliens are essentially monsters.
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Old 07-13-2010, 05:08 AM   #43
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Old 07-13-2010, 10:32 AM   #44
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So is it worth starting with series 3? Is the quality of the storylines drastically different, or just marginally?
I think the episodes in season three are dramatically better, but they do still have some of the inherent weaknesses of the episodes you saw. I started with "Bad Day at Black Rock" and "Sin City" and "Bedtime Stories" and found those to be solid enough with novel plot conventions. "Red Sky At Morning" was okay, and my interest was piqued enough to get through some weaker episodes. Then when I got to the string of "Dream A Little Dream Of Me", "Mystery Spot", "Jus In Bello", "Ghostfacers" and "Long Distance Call" ... I was hooked.

From the Wikipedia article Supernatural (season 3) (which also includes an episode guide):
Writing

For the third season, Kripke and the writing staff tried to mix the style of the "simple, pure, emotional" first season mythology with the "intensity" of the second season's self-enclosed episodes. As well, the studio wanted the writers to "open up the scope of the story and make things more epic". Though Kripke warned that doing so would cost much more money, the studio gave its blessing to exceed the allotted budget. However, the season premiere came in "way, way over budget", prompting the studio to change its mind. While writer Ben Edlund's pitch that demons are in actuality the corrupted souls of humans "opened up the mythology in an interesting and complicated way", other planned expansions of the mythology, such as Mary Winchester's connection to Azazel and the escalating demon war, were cut from the season due to the writer's strike. Despite this, Kripke felt it ended up making the series "meaner, leaner, and more concise".
I think the plotting of some of these stories rivals Buffy in quality ... but I'm with you on being of the opinion you have to make some allowances in consideration of the target audience. And the brothers never really talk to each other about their relationship or their feelings ... and that is frustrating. But based on what I've seen, if I wanted to get someone into this series, I'd start them on season 3 ... not season 1.


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To be honest, I don't hate Buffy as much as I probably sounded like I do up there. it's not really my thing, but my girlfriend has a huge affection for it, and after being forced into some okay episodes I was forced to admit that I'd been unduly harsh on it. It's a decent show, with a satisfyingly tight and consistent mythology of its own, good characterization and a strong script. Personally I find it too juvenile, but that's the nature of the beast given its target audience, and it's good for what it is. It's certainly a lot more sophisticated than Supernatural - both morally, and in its use of the monster as metaphor.

As for your (very specific) question, I guess the only thing that really springs to mind are certain episodes of Angel. Somewhere between shameless attempts to emotionally manipulate the viewer and disappearing up its own ass, I think that show occasionally struck gold.

EDIT: You may think I'm stretching this a bit, but I thik the inclusion of Dr. Who would also be justifiable, since most the aliens are essentially monsters.
I'm glad to hear you say that, because I have almost the exact opinion you do of Buffy. And Angel of course is of the same universe. Interesting point about Dr. Who ... there's a show we make a lot of allowances for, don't we. How many episodes can we spend enchanted by a plot that largely involves our heroes running away from or running after the bad guys in cheap costumes for 20-30 minutes of the 40-some minute episode on what usually are pretty cheap sets. I think of Dr. Who as "the chase of the week", and yet I like it very much. Why am I so willing to suspend my critical mind for this show when I judge others so harshly? I don't know.

BTW, to answer my own question, the only other show I could think of was the original "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" series. That was an interesting show for its time, although it stuck to a pretty formulaic methodology: each week the veteran news reporter stumbles across the evidence of a possible monster and tries to report on the vampire/mummy/witch/whatever but his boss at the paper and the local politicians and other authorities laugh him out of their offices ... till he resolves the issue and stops the string of murders by killing/banishing the monster by the end of the show. The episode ends with a sardonic recap by our hapless scribe, as he recounts why the local authorities won't let him publish his latest story because it will embarrass them.

I'm also sure it looks pretty dated now, the music screams bad 70's soundtrack and there's no way you believe Darren McGavin is the chick magnet they built him up to be ... but still, I liked it. In fact, I still recommend the made-for-tv movie "The Night Stalker" that inspired the series to friends as an example of a good vampire movie ... if you can get past that dated music.

Stay away from the 2005 remake of that series, "Night Stalker" developed by Frank Spotnitz (previously a writer and producer on "The X-Files). And let's not get started on "The X-Files", shall we? Thanks.

*edit* P.S. - My question was very specific because I wasn't looking for an anime series.
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Old 07-13-2010, 12:23 PM   #45
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Is someone implying that the first four seasons of the X-Files aren't exceptional television?
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Old 07-13-2010, 12:27 PM   #46
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I think the plotting of some of these stories rivals Buffy in quality ... but I'm with you on being of the opinion you have to make some allowances in consideration of the target audience. And the brothers never really talk to each other about their relationship or their feelings ... and that is frustrating.
You know, I wouldn’t have problem with that if they didn’t feel compelled to bring their feelings up every five minutes without ever getting to the heart of the matter. Practically every episode I’ve seen contains one or more of the following lines: “Are you okay?”; “You can’t avoid this”; “No, you are not fine”; “We need to talk about this”; only none of these staple lines ever lead anywhere significant. It’s lightweight therapy culture at its most boring. I kind of feel like it’d be an improvement if they just left the emotional angle out completely and concentrated on plot, with plenty of humor and darkness that isn’t centered around the underdeveloped and pointless angst of the two brothers; the constant circling around sentimental bro-mance shit is annoying when genuinely moving scenes are pretty much non-existent. I really dislike the compulsion in modern popular entertainment to throw in token winsome shit that the writer has no intention of taking anyplace interesting. Joss Whedon’s approach was much more effective: keep it light-ish most of the time, then kick ‘em in the balls once or twice per series. (Although of course, the superior characterization also helped when it came to giving a fuck.)


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I'm glad to hear you say that, because I have almost the exact opinion you do of Buffy. And Angel of course is of the same universe. Interesting point about Dr. Who ... there's a show we make a lot of allowances for, don't we. How many episodes can we spend enchanted by a plot that largely involves our heroes running away from or running after the bad guys in cheap costumes for 20-30 minutes of the 40-some minute episode on what usually are pretty cheap sets. I think of Dr. Who as "the chase of the week", and yet I like it very much. Why am I so willing to suspend my critical mind for this show when I judge others so harshly? I don't know.
You have a point there, but I know why I excuse it. It's because at its best, Dr. Who has the winning triad of humor, darkness, and heart. There are enough awesome episodes (mostly written by Steven Moffat before he inexplicably fucked it up the ass in the most recent series, IMO) to excuse piles of crap like Daleks in Manhattan and Love & Monsters.

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Nobody talks shit about Buffy, I will wreck your ass.
Dude, have your inner 14 yr old girl chill - I'm in a frail state here. I just said some very complimentary things about someting that isn't really my cup of tea, you KNOW how much that reasonable shit hurts me.
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Old 07-13-2010, 12:48 PM   #47
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On second thought, I think the series really started to get awesome when Castiel was introduced. He's so deadpan and its a wonderful balance to Sam's constant whining. The show does make fun if itself a lot but even when its trying to be serious Castiel just somehow lightens it all up.

And I don't know if my mind is in the gutter but I think they're very aware that fangirls love the idea of Dean and Castiel being together. You know, lines like "Castiel, blow me." Or when Castiel beat him up once it seems so passionate. Its little things like that that I love, and why I say it gets better once they realize who their fanbase is. I think Castiel was only meant to be temporary actually but fans loved him so much they made him a main character.
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Old 07-13-2010, 01:32 PM   #48
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Is someone implying that the first four seasons of the X-Files aren't exceptional television?
Actually, during that span they had some very good episodes. But the seeds of the series undoing were also sewn there, and I just really resented what they did with it after that point. I just have more respect for shows that start off weak and improve than for shows that start off strong and decline.

*sigh* - You're right ... at the beginning it was a very good show.

And Saya ... Whoa! ... You just went in a direction I did not expect.
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Old 07-13-2010, 02:42 PM   #49
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And although Desp did acknowledge numerous shortcomings, he also compared it to the work of Neil Gaiman, who I've never read but have heard is pretty damn good. That's false advertising in my book. Motherfucker owes me a dime.
To be fair, I only said it approached Gaiman's work when it was at it's best (Which it does in my opinion).

Honestly, even then it's more or less hanging around the stadium as opposed to being in the ballpark.

I do agree that there is alot of wasted potential her (I'm hoping season six improves, because season 5's ending left alot to be desired in my opion)

In the hands of a more capable writing staff (ie: one that includes me, and possibly David Milch) and a better network, it could've been legendary. The preminse is excellent, and the characters and relationships are there.

I can't say if the flaws are the fault of the writing staff, or due to executive meddling (Though the episode about the necromancer working on a movie set makes me suspect the latter).
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Old 07-13-2010, 04:55 PM   #50
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And Saya ... Whoa! ... You just went in a direction I did not expect.
What? The show addresses that it has scary fangirls Although it really isn't just fangirls, they have a lot of love for their nerdy fans too. But I only know one guy IRL who likes it and a WHOLE bunch of female slash fiction writers XD

Or was it my love for Castiel? Because he is awesome. And so is Misha Collins, by far my favourite celeb to follow on Twitter.

ETA: Actually, its a tie with LeVar Burton.
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