7:04: Defending Your Life
Oct. 15th, 2011 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oselleMan, the silence that greets each new ep of SPN here on LJ is really depressing. I just feel like people have totally given up. I'd go over to TWoP but those boards have always been boring as fuck with all their ban-happy bullshit rules about what you can and can't talk about.
But, like the rest of you, I don't seem to have anything to say. There just isn't anything to react to or discuss. I hadn't realized until Castiel was gone how much he'd held my interest for the past couple of seasons -- really, the last truly great episode (for me) was "The End" and that was a whopping two years ago. Got a lot of fic out of that one, anyway. But now it's just so blah. Dean continues to be pretty as ever but there's nothing to get worked up about. I want something to HAPPEN for God's sake, but the show really feels like it's run out of gas. Maybe seven years is just too long for a series like this.
The Vampire Diaries is kicking ass, but you know...that's only in it's third season. Four years from now, will there still be stories left to tell about Elena and Damon and Klaus etc.? Maybe genre shows like this simply don't have legs.
I wonder what SPN could have done to keep momentum. Letting Kripke basically end the show back in Season 5 was probably a shitty idea (ya think?). It might have helped to give good writers like Jeremy Carver a reaon to stick around, and they're not going to get much out of Ben Edlund now that they've more or less written out one of his favorite characters. And of course, the reins of the show should never have been handed over to Sera Gamble. I read that the show lost 25% of its audience by the end of Season 6. Those people have not come back. I think it's pretty safe to lay the blame for that at Gamble's feet.
Whatevs, I guess. It was a pretty good run there for a while. I became a fan in 2007 so that's...almost four years. Not bad.
I've got that displaced, "girl without a fandom" feeling, though. I hate that. I started a new job in August and I don't like it much and feel like I could use some distraction, but at the same time, I'm so tired that I don't think I could drum up the energy for fandom. Maybe that's part of the reason why I'm not into the show this year. Yesterday I didn't get home from work until almost 8:30. It was a shitty day and really, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. I practically dozed off during the episode. On the weekends now, I stay in bed until almost 10:00 am -- I haven't done that in years. Everything is so shitty. You make a move like this thinking things are gonna get better and they just get worse. That's been the whole pattern of my life. Every time I try to make things better they get worse.
Everything sucks.
But, like the rest of you, I don't seem to have anything to say. There just isn't anything to react to or discuss. I hadn't realized until Castiel was gone how much he'd held my interest for the past couple of seasons -- really, the last truly great episode (for me) was "The End" and that was a whopping two years ago. Got a lot of fic out of that one, anyway. But now it's just so blah. Dean continues to be pretty as ever but there's nothing to get worked up about. I want something to HAPPEN for God's sake, but the show really feels like it's run out of gas. Maybe seven years is just too long for a series like this.
The Vampire Diaries is kicking ass, but you know...that's only in it's third season. Four years from now, will there still be stories left to tell about Elena and Damon and Klaus etc.? Maybe genre shows like this simply don't have legs.
I wonder what SPN could have done to keep momentum. Letting Kripke basically end the show back in Season 5 was probably a shitty idea (ya think?). It might have helped to give good writers like Jeremy Carver a reaon to stick around, and they're not going to get much out of Ben Edlund now that they've more or less written out one of his favorite characters. And of course, the reins of the show should never have been handed over to Sera Gamble. I read that the show lost 25% of its audience by the end of Season 6. Those people have not come back. I think it's pretty safe to lay the blame for that at Gamble's feet.
Whatevs, I guess. It was a pretty good run there for a while. I became a fan in 2007 so that's...almost four years. Not bad.
I've got that displaced, "girl without a fandom" feeling, though. I hate that. I started a new job in August and I don't like it much and feel like I could use some distraction, but at the same time, I'm so tired that I don't think I could drum up the energy for fandom. Maybe that's part of the reason why I'm not into the show this year. Yesterday I didn't get home from work until almost 8:30. It was a shitty day and really, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. I practically dozed off during the episode. On the weekends now, I stay in bed until almost 10:00 am -- I haven't done that in years. Everything is so shitty. You make a move like this thinking things are gonna get better and they just get worse. That's been the whole pattern of my life. Every time I try to make things better they get worse.
Everything sucks.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-16 12:23 am (UTC)It's ironic how the name of that particular episode signified more than what happened within the ep - it signified the literal end of creativity and solid story-telling. I now believe the show should have ended with season five, because then maybe the original finale would have played out, and not the bastardized version that was more a prelude to Gamble's impending vision (or lack thereof) for season sux that we got insttead. And maybe Kripke would have stayed interested and engaged if he had known there really would be no more after season five.
I'm not watching live, and frankly not really watching later as much as FF'ing. Took me two weeks to watch the first couple of episodes, I don't even remember when I FF'd through last week's, and this week's is sitting on the dvr. I'm not inspired to give it a go.
I miss when I used to love the show, and don't like that I'm just hanging around it now solely to catch a glimpse of Jensen Ackles. I miss the Dean/Cas relationship, I hate the craptacular exit for Cas, and nothing I've seen and nothing I hear isn't anything that hasn't been done before, countless times.
I'm kind floundering too WRT fandom. Don't get me wrong, I watch a lot of other stuff, and almost all of it is wildly better than SPN. But I'm not fannish about anything else, really. I'm waiting and wanting the next thing that's going to make me all giddy again.
Sorry that RL is sucking for you right now. :(
no subject
Date: 2011-10-16 02:52 am (UTC)I never thought of it that way, but you're right -- it was pretty much the last original thing the show did.
I recently received S5 as a gift and I laughed when I saw that so much of the artwork on the packaging displayed scenes from "The End" (only with Dean and Sam, not Dean and Cas) as if the whole season really did revolve around that post-apocalyptic storyline. It's hilariously misleading -- you've got Dean there in Croatan Kansas City with a fierce, gun-toting Sam now photoshopped in next to him. It sure looks as if someone (besides those of us in fandom) agreed that "The End" was the best thing about the season -- enough to try and make it look as if that was what the show was about. Like I said, misleading, but also very telling.
I watch a lot of other stuff, and almost all of it is wildly better than SPN. But I'm not fannish about anything else, really.
The one thing I've learned about fandom is that the chemistry of it is identical to falling in love -- you can't MAKE it happen. It's something that hits you all at once -- either at first sight, or suddenly when you least expect it. Lord of the Rings was love at first sight for me; with SPN, it took me two years of apathetic, sporadic viewership and then it just hit me like a ton of bricks during a Season 2 summer rerun. I still remember the episode, it was "Folsom Prison Blues." And I still remember the exact moment, it was when Dean got billyclubbed in the guts during that prison cafeteria brawl. Head over heels, from that instant -- didn't ask for it, didn't make it happen, never saw it coming. I find it hard to believe that anything's going to hit me that way again.