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[oselle]

Just back from a long weekend chez baylorsr, who lured me out to the wilds of Michigan with her extensive catalog of DVDs and TiVod Smallville episodes. On my flight out, I kept thinking that there are precious few 40-year-old women who will fly 500 miles to watch television all weekend. Don't they have television in New York? Not like this they don't. At least, not yet. Just wait till I hop on Amazon tomorrow.

The subject of this weekend's research was Proto-Dean Winchester, i.e., shows that starred Dean Winchester before he found his true incarnation as same. Ratings for Prettiness and Proto-Deanness will be on a 1-10 scale. Let's start off with...

Dawson's Creek, Season Whatever
Or better yet, let's not. Proto-Dean, here called "C.J.", has a dreadfully floppy Dawsonesque hairdo and is carrying a surprising heft of babyfat on his face. Still beautiful, but you'll have to watch him being schmoopy with Michelle Williams, who is somehow sharing her bed with a naked proto-Dean Winchester while wearing heavy flannel pajamas buttoned up to her neck. What?? Such implausible idiocy cannot be tolerated for long. Only valuable for heavy-duty research and saying "What the fuck!?" a lot.
Pretty Rating: I'm going with a 6 here, mostly due to bad hair.
Proto-Dean Rating: God, no more than a 2, and that for physical resemblance more than anything.


Dark Angel, Season Two
Like saying, "What the fuck!?" You'll have plenty of chances to practice that pithy phrase when you watch this bizarre sci-fi mishmash that somehow limped through two seasons on Fox. We skipped through most of this to get to the proto-Dean parts, so there could be a very good show somewhere under that fast-forward button, but I wouldn't count on it.

Dark Angel's 21-year-old proto-Dean is Alec, no last name. He starts out the season with nothing but a serial number because he's a genetically engineered supersoldier in a dystopian yet somehow blindingly sunny Seattle-of-the-future. He's been cloned from a previous version of himself by a supposedly evil corporation named Manticore, but I don't see what's so evil about creating human beings that look like Alec. Apparently, the producers feel the same way because throughout the season they treat us to Alec in various modes of undress, most often with his shirt off and once, very memorably, clad in nothing but a very low-slung towel. Did I mention that he's 21 years old? Yes? Well, did I mention that he spends part of one episode locked in an Ultimate Fighting Championship-style deathmatch while wearing nothing but silky black kung-fu pants? Oh yes, I have your attention now, don't I?

The great drawback of this series is that they apparently thought Jessica Alba, playing "Max," a fellow "transgenic" and Manticore escapee, was the star. I'll admit she's pretty and has a great body but she sure doesn't have the acting chops to support a whole series and as pretty as she is, Alec is still prettier. Let's face it, Alec is prettier than everyone. Jensen Ackles also acts rings around Alba, outshining her in every scene that they have together, although I'll admit they had nice chemistry -- not romantic, more like brother-sister. But I'm becoming convinced that Jensen Ackles could have chemistry with a tree stump.

Alec plays the self-involved, cynical wiseacre to Max's painfully earnest heroine and he is consistently more interesting than she is. It doesn't help that, unlike Max, Alec is actually given a great character arc, going from willing Manticore operative to ass-kicking freedom fighter over the course of the season. Alec is so captivating that you want to see more of him, but the story keeps going back to the woefully one-noted Max, her incredibly dull romance with some guy named Logan, and even such embarassingly lame supporting characters as a mutant dog-faced boy. I'm not kidding about that last part. James Cameron thought that a mutant dog-faced boy was as interesting as the beautiful and secretly haunted Alec. Are you surprised this show is off the air?

Poor Jensen Ackles acts his incredibly fine, barely-legal ass off, gamely selling the hell out of some truly dreadful material. But every time things start to get good, they cut to Max, often completely and unforgivably missing out on Ackles's particular flair for angst. Alec's chronic smart-assing does, however, provide some much-needed spirit and levity to the lugubriously dull goings-on.

Have to mention that one episode, "The Berrisford Agenda," is essentially devoted to Alec's grim backstory and we get to see him a) wearing a lovely suit and charming, rimless glasses; b) glistening, and I mean glistening in a swimming pool and c) being painfully reprogrammed by Manticore after he deliberately blows a Jason Bourne-esque mission...for love. Sigh! He's so tormented! Such suffering under that wisecracking exterior! Oh, the possibilities!! Alas, we soon find ourselves back with Max. As if we cared.
Pretty Rating: Going with an 8, only because Alec's extreme youth renders him almost too pretty and also makes me feel like a real dirty old broad.
Proto-Dean Rating: Alec's flippant, fatalistic nature allows for some great proto-Dean moments, and he really works the angst when they let him, so I'll say a 6.


Smallville, Season Four
GOOD GOD!

I think I inflicted some contusions on poor baylorsr while viewing this.

Proto-Dean is here known as "Jason Teague," who's introduced to us as the darling boy who sweeps Lana off her feet in Paris, then follows her back to Smallville like a lovesick puppy where they live together but apparently don't have sex, quite possibly one of the most unbelievable things ever put on television, including the mutant dog-faced boy. Never mind this bit of stupidity though, because Jason's got one hell of a trip ahead of him and you'll be there for every agonizing step of the way.

After following Lana back to Smallville, Jason signs on as Smallville High's assistant football coach, where he sports a delightfully preppy uniform and gets to radiate golden light out on the playing field. Things pretty much go downhill from there and if you thought Dean Winchester was tragic, you ain't seen nothin' yet. An intensely convoluted plot involving Lana's witchy ancestors, some freaky artifacts and Jason's horrifying mother, Genevieve, will eventually turn Jason from a preppy sweetheart into a tortured madman running through the woods with blood streaming down his face. In between these two extremes, Jason will get beaten, stabbed, shot, strangled, thrown out of windows...and oh God!...chained up and electrocuted in a Chinese prison where he is also forced to watch the love of his life being tortured and then possessed by a centuries-dead witch! Now that's what I'm talking about!! These folks could teach those idiots at Dark Angel a lesson!

Jensen Ackles sells all this with so much gusto I don't know how he didn't rupture something. He's just as believable as Lana's devoted boyfriend at the beginning of the season as he is as the utter wreck of a human being he becomes by the end. Special props have to go to Jane Seymour, playing Jason's appalling mother to the absolute hilt. Watching Jason succumb to her manipulative (and disturbingly sexual) influence is a thing of horrible beauty. Watching this tragic young man's entire life crumble to ashes is unforgettable.
Pretty Rating: OFF THE CHARTS, and enhanced by some of the best lighting on television. Think candlelight. Lots and lots of candlelight.
Proto-Dean Rating: I'll say a 9. Jason lacks Dean's devil-may-care insouciance but his angst is dead-on. Helps that this season was the one just before Supernatural premiered, so Jason's got the same look as Dean, even, it seems, some of the same wardrobe.

Much, much thanks to baylorsr and her sister for their wonderful hospitality and all the fantastic viewing!