As usual, I'm late to the party...
I have finally discovered the tv show Supernatural. After watching all four seasons in the last month and a half, I have come to the conclusion that it totally kicks ass.
Honestly, I'm kind of in shock about how much I love this series. Supernatural was one of those shows that I'd heard about, but pretty much dismissed as the Hardy Boys meet Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And although I enjoy the urban fantasy genre, there's only so much of the same regurgitated ideas with a "monster of the week" format that I can take. So while I'd watched occasionally in five to ten minute increments as I channel surfed (which included, unfortunately, the end of season 3), I never really gave it a fair shot.
And then a couple of months ago, someone posted this clip on weepingcock:
I decided that any show that mocked it's own fans like this deserved a chance.
The first episode was solid and neatly sets up the premise and establishes the relationship between the Winchester brothers and their father. The episodes immediately following were entertaining if not particularly outstanding, although there were a few stumbles along the way (like the episode about bugs or the racist monster truck - oy.). But it wasn't until the ninth episode, when Dean makes a desperate phone call to his father, that I realized that this show had a lot more potential than I thought.
I was hooked, because you see, I've made that kind of phone call to my own parents. True, I wasn't calling my parents because I thought there was a demon in our old house that had killed my mom. But I have made those kind of phone calls (even as an adult) to my parents, when I've been completely overwhelmed by something that's happened in my life and I'm desperate for some kind of parental guidance.
Which brings me to the first reason why this show rocks.
1. It's about family - siblings in particular.
I mean, yeah, they fight demons and ghosts and whatnot, which is all fun and good, but at the core of this story is the relationship of two brothers and their father which has all been twisted by the horrible death of their mother. It's about sons trying to get out of their father's shadow and discovering that the parents they once looked up to as infallible, are regular, flawed people. It's about the way older and younger siblings interact.
Sam, and especially the older sibling Dean, are so easy for me to relate to because on a lot of levels their relationship mirrors the one I have with my own little brother and my cousin (who came to live with my family, and is basically like a sister to me). Like Dean, I was the older sibling who looked up to my parents, and more or less followed the rules. My little brother and my cousin, like Sam, were the rebels of the family, constantly pushing my parents limits as they tried to do their own thing. A lot of the conversations and squabbles and arguments that they have are just larger than life versions of ones that I've had with my own brother and cousin. And it's not just me. I see shades of Sam and Dean in the way that my dad, my mom and my husband all interact with their siblings too. Hell, I can even see it in the way my own children interact with each other.
Who hasn't argued with their sibling about who gets control of the music in the car? While I didn't say anything nearly as clever Dean's: "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole," I vividly remember having that argument with my brother when I was seventeen and driving my first set of wheels.
One of my favorite moments in the series is a scene where the two brothers, who have been getting on each others nerves over completely petty shit, end up in a wrestling match on the bed over a money clip. I've totally done that with my brother and cousin.
As good as Buffy and Angel were, this element of family was pretty much completely ignored (until Dawn showed up magically and then... ugh.... let's not go there). Everything took backseat to the epic romances in the series. Maybe it's my age, but while I love a good epic romance, it's really damn refreshing to see a sibling relationship front and center.
2. It's about guys acting like guys.
It's really awesome to see a show that focuses on the relationships that men have with each other, because let's face it, guys interact differently with each other than they do with women (at least in my experience). The men on this show act like real men, instead of what often happens in fiction which is an idealized version of what women think manly men act like.
I don't mean that they act all macho, although there is definitely some of that going on. I'm talking about the way they relate to each other. While this show has a fair share of the main characters pouring their hearts out and/or yelling at each other, they do it in a way that men do. They hate talking about their feelings, sometimes talking around a subject completely, or just refusing to talk about it at all. A lot of times, it's what isn't said that's important. Sometimes it's just a look, and no dialogue at all. Sometimes they throw punches at each other.
They never once in the four years of the show (at least that I can remember) say "I love you, man," which makes sense because I don't think that men really say it very often to each other, but it's always clear that they do.
Which leads me to my next reason for why I love this show:
3. Earned emotional payoffs.
When it comes to the family relationships of this show (between the brothers Sam & Dean, their mother and father and their surrogate father/uncle Bobby) every single emotional payoff is 100% earned with painstaking plotting and character building. And while this show can be brutally heartbreaking, it never feels cheap or overly sentimental. They even manage to do a Christmas episode with an ending scene that is beautiful, heartbreaking in a totally guy way and it's what's not said but implied that just punches you right in the gut.
I wish I could say the same thing about the occasional romantic subplot that crops up, but all of those so far have fallen completely flat. However the writers seem to recognize this too, and tend to keep the romance to a minimum.
4. It has a great plot, which they take to logical conclusions.
The first season of this show was pretty heavy on the monster of the week format, with main plot episodes inserted on occasion. It takes awhile for the main plot to get focused, but somewhere during the end of the first season and beginning of a second, we really start to get a feel of the specific mythology of show. By the end of the four seasons, most of the episodes are plot oriented, and the occasional monster of the week episodes seem to be used as a break from the relentlessly dark story. I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but I'll just say that I really love how they've put a fresh take on American folklore/urban legends and have taken Judeo-Christian mythology to it's logical conclusion. They really found their story telling groove in the third and fourth seasons, and I cannot wait to see how they resolve some of this crazy shit they've stirred up.
I really hate it when urban fantasy pussies out and crazy shit that happens doesn't really affect the world the characters live in (Jim Butcher- I'm looking at you). For example, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was constant wangst about how Buffy couldn't have a normal life. In the mean time, she's going to highschool, college, has multiple boyfriends (which admittedly didn't turn out so hot), gets to live with her mom and have a large extended group of friends and family. And even though all of this crazy shit is happening, she never gets into trouble with the cops. I mean, yeah, her life sucked, but really considering how she was stopping the apocalypse every season, it really wasn't that bad.
On Supernatural, the life of a hunter is extremely dangerous and it's pretty much impossible to live anything like a normal life. They live in dingy hotel rooms, have to scam credit card companies to have money and are in constant danger of getting busted by the FBI (who thinks the brothers are serial killers/grave robbers). Caring or loving another person is extremely dangerous, because the demons use that love as a weapon. The choices the characters make actually have weight to them, because we know the writers are going to make them face the consequences at some point.
5. It's really damn funny.
It really is. The humor isn't as constant as Buffy/Angel, although there's usually some great one liners and funny moments in even the most serious episodes. But occasionally they go all out with a comedy, and the results are usually hilarious. The episode Ghostfacers is an awesome spoof of those ghost reality shows (Ghosthunters and the like). A Very Supernatural Christmas is gory and disturbing and hilarious episode that features pagan gods and the Anti-Clause. At one point on the series, they even have an alcoholic, porn watching suicidal giant teddy bear (and yes, it's freaking hilarious). They even have a very clever episode that's their take on the movie Groundhog Day, which is simultaneously disturbing, cracktastic and funny.
6. It has a kick ass soundtrack.
Many songs have been used to great effect, and I really wish they'd release a soundtrack (or at least a list of music they've used). Standouts include the use of as Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son (during pivotal episode recaps), to the rock cover of What a Wonderful World (in the episode where Dean lives his fantasy life), to Rosemary Cloony singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in the Christmas special, to the brothers doofy sing along to Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive.
My major bitch about the show (and it's a BIG one) is the lack of interesting, strong and/or non cliched female characters. It really sucks that a show that can write such interesting men can fail so freaking hard at writing women. Out of four seasons, there have only been four standout female characters that have been interesting to watch, and sadly none of them stuck around for very long. The rest of them are boring at best (pretty much every woman who's been introduced as a romantic foil) and cringeworthy at worst (Ruby and Jo - who fail the hardest, I think, because the writers make the classic mistake of equating asskicking women and strong women). Most of them seem to exist solely for the purpose of being set dressing or plot devices. It's unfortunate because it would be awesome to see better female characters for the guys to play off of.
There's also the whole problem of this show, which is supposed to be an epic road trip across America, all looking the same. I mean, seriously, you never really get the feel of the cities or locations they're supposed to be in. They never go anywhere that looks like it could be south of the Mason Dixon line. And they avoid big cities like the plague (the only one I remember them in was Chicago - and dude, that totally wasn't Chicago). I'm more inclined to forgive this though, because I think this is probably a result of having to stick to a tight budget and film in Vancouver.
Still, even with these flaws, I find this show seriously entertaining. I think I'm about to commit some serious nerd blasphemy and declare that this show owes a huge debt to Buffy and Angel, that I enjoy it a lot more.
I think I'll stay away from the fandom, however. I took a peek and damn, some of the fans are definitely in batshit insane territory.
Honestly, I'm kind of in shock about how much I love this series. Supernatural was one of those shows that I'd heard about, but pretty much dismissed as the Hardy Boys meet Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And although I enjoy the urban fantasy genre, there's only so much of the same regurgitated ideas with a "monster of the week" format that I can take. So while I'd watched occasionally in five to ten minute increments as I channel surfed (which included, unfortunately, the end of season 3), I never really gave it a fair shot.
And then a couple of months ago, someone posted this clip on weepingcock:
Click to viewI decided that any show that mocked it's own fans like this deserved a chance.
The first episode was solid and neatly sets up the premise and establishes the relationship between the Winchester brothers and their father. The episodes immediately following were entertaining if not particularly outstanding, although there were a few stumbles along the way (like the episode about bugs or the racist monster truck - oy.). But it wasn't until the ninth episode, when Dean makes a desperate phone call to his father, that I realized that this show had a lot more potential than I thought.
I was hooked, because you see, I've made that kind of phone call to my own parents. True, I wasn't calling my parents because I thought there was a demon in our old house that had killed my mom. But I have made those kind of phone calls (even as an adult) to my parents, when I've been completely overwhelmed by something that's happened in my life and I'm desperate for some kind of parental guidance.
Which brings me to the first reason why this show rocks.
1. It's about family - siblings in particular.
I mean, yeah, they fight demons and ghosts and whatnot, which is all fun and good, but at the core of this story is the relationship of two brothers and their father which has all been twisted by the horrible death of their mother. It's about sons trying to get out of their father's shadow and discovering that the parents they once looked up to as infallible, are regular, flawed people. It's about the way older and younger siblings interact.
Sam, and especially the older sibling Dean, are so easy for me to relate to because on a lot of levels their relationship mirrors the one I have with my own little brother and my cousin (who came to live with my family, and is basically like a sister to me). Like Dean, I was the older sibling who looked up to my parents, and more or less followed the rules. My little brother and my cousin, like Sam, were the rebels of the family, constantly pushing my parents limits as they tried to do their own thing. A lot of the conversations and squabbles and arguments that they have are just larger than life versions of ones that I've had with my own brother and cousin. And it's not just me. I see shades of Sam and Dean in the way that my dad, my mom and my husband all interact with their siblings too. Hell, I can even see it in the way my own children interact with each other.
Who hasn't argued with their sibling about who gets control of the music in the car? While I didn't say anything nearly as clever Dean's: "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole," I vividly remember having that argument with my brother when I was seventeen and driving my first set of wheels.
One of my favorite moments in the series is a scene where the two brothers, who have been getting on each others nerves over completely petty shit, end up in a wrestling match on the bed over a money clip. I've totally done that with my brother and cousin.
As good as Buffy and Angel were, this element of family was pretty much completely ignored (until Dawn showed up magically and then... ugh.... let's not go there). Everything took backseat to the epic romances in the series. Maybe it's my age, but while I love a good epic romance, it's really damn refreshing to see a sibling relationship front and center.
2. It's about guys acting like guys.
It's really awesome to see a show that focuses on the relationships that men have with each other, because let's face it, guys interact differently with each other than they do with women (at least in my experience). The men on this show act like real men, instead of what often happens in fiction which is an idealized version of what women think manly men act like.
I don't mean that they act all macho, although there is definitely some of that going on. I'm talking about the way they relate to each other. While this show has a fair share of the main characters pouring their hearts out and/or yelling at each other, they do it in a way that men do. They hate talking about their feelings, sometimes talking around a subject completely, or just refusing to talk about it at all. A lot of times, it's what isn't said that's important. Sometimes it's just a look, and no dialogue at all. Sometimes they throw punches at each other.
They never once in the four years of the show (at least that I can remember) say "I love you, man," which makes sense because I don't think that men really say it very often to each other, but it's always clear that they do.
Which leads me to my next reason for why I love this show:
3. Earned emotional payoffs.
When it comes to the family relationships of this show (between the brothers Sam & Dean, their mother and father and their surrogate father/uncle Bobby) every single emotional payoff is 100% earned with painstaking plotting and character building. And while this show can be brutally heartbreaking, it never feels cheap or overly sentimental. They even manage to do a Christmas episode with an ending scene that is beautiful, heartbreaking in a totally guy way and it's what's not said but implied that just punches you right in the gut.
I wish I could say the same thing about the occasional romantic subplot that crops up, but all of those so far have fallen completely flat. However the writers seem to recognize this too, and tend to keep the romance to a minimum.
4. It has a great plot, which they take to logical conclusions.
The first season of this show was pretty heavy on the monster of the week format, with main plot episodes inserted on occasion. It takes awhile for the main plot to get focused, but somewhere during the end of the first season and beginning of a second, we really start to get a feel of the specific mythology of show. By the end of the four seasons, most of the episodes are plot oriented, and the occasional monster of the week episodes seem to be used as a break from the relentlessly dark story. I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but I'll just say that I really love how they've put a fresh take on American folklore/urban legends and have taken Judeo-Christian mythology to it's logical conclusion. They really found their story telling groove in the third and fourth seasons, and I cannot wait to see how they resolve some of this crazy shit they've stirred up.
I really hate it when urban fantasy pussies out and crazy shit that happens doesn't really affect the world the characters live in (Jim Butcher- I'm looking at you). For example, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was constant wangst about how Buffy couldn't have a normal life. In the mean time, she's going to highschool, college, has multiple boyfriends (which admittedly didn't turn out so hot), gets to live with her mom and have a large extended group of friends and family. And even though all of this crazy shit is happening, she never gets into trouble with the cops. I mean, yeah, her life sucked, but really considering how she was stopping the apocalypse every season, it really wasn't that bad.
On Supernatural, the life of a hunter is extremely dangerous and it's pretty much impossible to live anything like a normal life. They live in dingy hotel rooms, have to scam credit card companies to have money and are in constant danger of getting busted by the FBI (who thinks the brothers are serial killers/grave robbers). Caring or loving another person is extremely dangerous, because the demons use that love as a weapon. The choices the characters make actually have weight to them, because we know the writers are going to make them face the consequences at some point.
5. It's really damn funny.
It really is. The humor isn't as constant as Buffy/Angel, although there's usually some great one liners and funny moments in even the most serious episodes. But occasionally they go all out with a comedy, and the results are usually hilarious. The episode Ghostfacers is an awesome spoof of those ghost reality shows (Ghosthunters and the like). A Very Supernatural Christmas is gory and disturbing and hilarious episode that features pagan gods and the Anti-Clause. At one point on the series, they even have an alcoholic, porn watching suicidal giant teddy bear (and yes, it's freaking hilarious). They even have a very clever episode that's their take on the movie Groundhog Day, which is simultaneously disturbing, cracktastic and funny.
6. It has a kick ass soundtrack.
Many songs have been used to great effect, and I really wish they'd release a soundtrack (or at least a list of music they've used). Standouts include the use of as Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son (during pivotal episode recaps), to the rock cover of What a Wonderful World (in the episode where Dean lives his fantasy life), to Rosemary Cloony singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in the Christmas special, to the brothers doofy sing along to Bon Jovi's Dead or Alive.
My major bitch about the show (and it's a BIG one) is the lack of interesting, strong and/or non cliched female characters. It really sucks that a show that can write such interesting men can fail so freaking hard at writing women. Out of four seasons, there have only been four standout female characters that have been interesting to watch, and sadly none of them stuck around for very long. The rest of them are boring at best (pretty much every woman who's been introduced as a romantic foil) and cringeworthy at worst (Ruby and Jo - who fail the hardest, I think, because the writers make the classic mistake of equating asskicking women and strong women). Most of them seem to exist solely for the purpose of being set dressing or plot devices. It's unfortunate because it would be awesome to see better female characters for the guys to play off of.
There's also the whole problem of this show, which is supposed to be an epic road trip across America, all looking the same. I mean, seriously, you never really get the feel of the cities or locations they're supposed to be in. They never go anywhere that looks like it could be south of the Mason Dixon line. And they avoid big cities like the plague (the only one I remember them in was Chicago - and dude, that totally wasn't Chicago). I'm more inclined to forgive this though, because I think this is probably a result of having to stick to a tight budget and film in Vancouver.
Still, even with these flaws, I find this show seriously entertaining. I think I'm about to commit some serious nerd blasphemy and declare that this show owes a huge debt to Buffy and Angel, that I enjoy it a lot more.
I think I'll stay away from the fandom, however. I took a peek and damn, some of the fans are definitely in batshit insane territory.