SPN 7:01

[oselle]

This was the first time I ever had someone over to watch the season premiere with me, so we were gabbing more than we were watching. I recorded it on my "VCR" (you kids won't know what that is -- let's just say it's a sort of primitive ancestor of the DVR, in which television shows were recorded on big plastic cartridges known as "cassette tapes"), so I'll have to rewatch this weekend. These are just my initial impressions:

1) Nothing could have annoyed me more than having a Sera Gamble "behind-the-scenes" featurette foisted on me. You folks who download the episode will at least be spared listening to Gamble babble on about "urban legends" as if that premise hadn't been played out years ago, and having to look at her acting all important in her office made me want to peel off my skin. I hate this woman.

2) Although I know (I think?) it's just a hallucination, the suggestion that Sam is still in hell and that everything he's experienced since supposedly leaving hell has just been conjured up to torture him is (hallucination or not) one that was floated by viewers all the way back in Season 4...when it actually would have been interesting. I actually held out a hope through most of Season 4 that we would find out that the radically altered Sam and the awful Ruby were nothing more than the supporting cast of Dean's custom-tailored hell, and that part of Season 5 would revolve around the REAL Sam springing his brother from the Pit. Alas, Gamble chose to take what was a good idea three years ago and finally use it...for Sam.

3) Speaking of things that were good ideas, I had Meg in hiding in a broken-down white trash trailer years ago in one of my stories, so Crowley hiding out in a broken-down white trash trailer sort of felt like something I came up with. A long time ago.

4) I amend my statement in (1). Nothing could have annoyed me more than seeing that the not-so-dynamic duo of Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin have now been elevated to producers, thereby continuing and expanding their Reign of Suck. I hate these guys.

5) The one bright spot was that Castiel looked so vicious at the end of the episode that it sure seemed like he was finally going to do to Dean what he's clearly wanted to do to Dean for a long time, whether Dean was on board with it or not, but of course that's not going to happen on television. It should at the least inspire some really filthy fanfic, though.

6) If they want us to feel for Sam, they should endeavor to make his hell look a little less like a kids' Halloween party. Where did they get the props for that scene, Party City?

7) To be honest, I DON'T feel for Sam. I know this is a dead horse, but Dean appeared to get over his time in hell pretty quickly (even without a "wall") so I don't know why we're expected to believe that Sam's trauma is so much worse. I know, I know, "worst part of hell" and all that but please, that is SO Season Six, and it didn't make any sense back then, either.

8) Castiel loves Dean so very, very much that all he could do in his brief return to himself was apologize to Dean while gazing at him with heartbroken regret. Man, that cat is smitten.

9) The Tao Te Ching says "to compare one thing to another is a disease of the mind." Well I say, the hell with that. I started watching The Vampire Diaries over the summer and caught both the season premiere and this week's episode and cannot believe how good it is. Not just great storytelling and characters, but also genuinely scary. That scene in the woods with all the zombie-like werewolf/vampire hybrids was so creepy it gave me goosebumps -- I don't think I've ever seen anything on SPN that was remotely as frightening. I don't know why TVD can maintain a consistent, compelling, forward-moving storyline and SPN just seems to flounder all over the place, hardly knowing what kind of show it's supposed to be (Procedural or serial? Drama or comedy? Ghost story or grossout?) As an added benefit, Steven R. McQueen is giving Jensen Ackles a serious run for his money in the pretty department, and I'm hoping the increasingly lovely Jeremy has a more central involvement in the episodes this season so that I can get all fluttery over a character who's actually in a good show. From what I've observed on the few occasions when he's gotten beaten up/bitten/murdered, he also suffers quite beautifully, and the writers and producers should take note of this and have him suffer more. Yesss, a great deal more. Right now he's being tormented by the ghosts of not one but two dead girlfriends, and that's a great start.

10) I found out today that Lauren Cohan, who once occupied the thankless role of Bela on SPN, will be part of the second season of The Walking Dead. I always feel happy for her when I see her in something good (like her brief turn on TVD last year) because she was so ill-used on SPN that it was downright painful to watch.

Comments

[mulder200.livejournal.com]

7) To be honest, I DON'T feel for Sam. I know this is a dead horse, but Dean appeared to get over his time in hell pretty quickly (even without a "wall") so I don't know why we're expected to believe that Sam's trauma is so much worse. I know, I know, "worst part of hell" and all that but please, that is SO Season Six, and it didn't make any sense back then, either.

I know! It's so annoying! When Dean went to Hell everyone told him to suck it up and deal but because this is SAM, his experience is ten times worse and gets more sympathy.

(I am also sure this has nothing AT ALL to do with Sera's hard on for Sam. I mean really could she be MORE obvious.)

[kinkthatwinked.livejournal.com]

Vampire Diaries is good? Seriously, vampires in high school? Just the premise kept me from watching it. Is it True Blood good? Or just a shade above Twilight (another fandom I haven’t even given a chance)?

I remembered thinking it is pretty pathetic they had to run a “please keep watching this show” commercial minutes into the season opener. At least that’s how the Gamble spot struck me.

Brother, I remember sitting there thinking “A hallucination? Finally, an interesting idea!” I’ve gotten to the point where it doesn’t surprise me at all that the audience was miles (or years, I should say) ahead of the writers. My, how my standards have sunk for this show. Actually, the more I’m thinking about this new Sam Problem, the less I care. Maybe I’d be more invested if Dean’s sentence had wrecked him, but apparently Hell isn’t much worse than getting mugged.

They can’t do anything but make Hell look like a Halloween kids’ party, because it has to stay on the same level as the rest of the show’s writing. This is one reason, IMO, this show was a lot better back when Heaven and Hell were abstracts left to the viewers’ imaginations. It felt like the show knew its limitations, understood when something was “above their pay grade,” as they love to say on this show.

The way they made fresh-from-Hell Dean bounce back like he’d just had a bad day always felt like the writers’ glaring lack of imagination. I suppose now, three years later, they finally get that someone tortured in Hell should at least be as traumatized as your average war veteran. Let’s see if they at least get that right, and we know they’ll give it every effort because, you know, it is SAM this time.

As pissed as you are that about how they’re wasting Dean, I’m as disgruntled about Sam’s lost potential, which is even sorrier when you consider his character has always had the writers’ full attention. Give me some fanfic where Sam is still sympathetic, honorable, driven and heroic, yet also secretive, moody as hell and dangerous, and still psychic, goddammit! You know, back when he was three-dimensional.

[ghyste.livejournal.com]

As you know, I spent a great deal of S4 desperately hoping that what we were seeing on screen was just part of Dean’s punishment in Hell, but alas it was not to be. Le sigh.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying TVD. I had a bit of a struggle with the first few episodes of S1 but then it seemed to hit its stride and, as you say, it really delivers on a weekly basis. They also have the knack of creating female characters that can be both stunningly gorgeous and interesting. The only one they’ve gone a little astray with, IMHOP, is Bonnie and that’s because she’s the only one they’ve tried to make “spunky”.

[emeraldus.livejournal.com]

Not even Dean being pretty saved this episode for me. I was pretty much bored from the beginning, with a little bit of interest peeking out at the end. Longer this goes on, the more I wish they had simply ended it with season 5.

[mangokulfi.livejournal.com]

The epi played out pretty much exactly how I imagined it would after the Comic Con interviews and barring the scene with Dean and the few secs where real Cas comes back shows how very, very much he still loves Dean, I was bored.

Maybe if Sam had the Hell story first, I would have found it interesting but it just seems like a lazy rehash of what Dean went through except the visual effects look much cheaper when the scenes last longer than just a flash. Also JPs flaming face is so cartoony that it just makes me roll my eyes.

[layne67.livejournal.com]

8. That's pretty much the highlight of the show for me. Plus Lucifer minus the skin lesions.

10. She's also in Chuck!

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

I think M told me about Lauren Cohan, but it has been a bad week, so I forgot about it and then just now got re-excited all over again. I am now looking forward to the new season of Walking Dead more than I was before, if that's possible.

So, I should be watching TVD then? I started it, but when Boone Ian idk his character's name but the brother didn't start eating people's faces right off, I got bored. Maybe I should be watching this show. I am disappointed in everything else I watch during the regular season thus far.

Though to be fair to SPN, it was good back in season two. By season six of TVD, it may also suck ass.

All I have to say about SPN so far is that Cas loves Dean so very, very much. The only thing I enjoyed besides how much I love Jensen's hair, were the two "real" moments between Dean & Cas.