Supernatural

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Murdoch
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:59 pm
Location: Upstate NY

Supernatural

#1 Post by Murdoch » Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:28 pm

I figured since we have a Vampire Diaries thread that this one deserved its own. I'm currently working my way through the series and it's more often than not an X-Files offspring, monster-of-the-week with a big baddy looming in the background. But even early on the show has some episodes which are among the most fun I've had watching this TV subgenre (particularly the Groundhog Day one which feels fresh despite how reliving the same day has become a TV cliche).

But what really motivated me to make this thread was season 5 where the show grounds itself in Christian mythology, but instead of presenting us with a showdown between the good Angels versus the evil Demons the writers make it clear that both sides are more malevolent than anything else, with the Angels acting out like a dysfunctional family. Both sides are just trying to exterminate the humans and reclaim the world for themselves, as God sits by and declares that the apocalypse "isn't His problem." Add to that a portrayal of heaven as a mere Matrix-style virtual reality of wish fulfillment (something played to a similar biting effect in the short-lived Caprica) and you have a pretty unsympathetic portrayal of Christianity. Plus, Mark Pellegrino as Satan is perfect casting (the guy could make a living playing non-human superbeings).

I've heard from a few fans that the show should've ended with season 5 so I'll see how well I still like it as I move further through the series. Although I did catch one of the most recent episodes and enjoyed it quite a bit, even if it loses some of its depth it's still a lot of fun.
Last edited by Murdoch on Sun Feb 10, 2013 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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Re: Supernatural

#2 Post by domino harvey » Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:39 pm

All I know about this show is that one of my Tumblr friends reposts so so many picture posts alluding to assorted homosexual undertones within the show. And these posts have a lot of notes. So I guess there's some sort of fanbase in that direction keeping it going?

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Murdoch
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:59 pm
Location: Upstate NY

Re: Supernatural

#3 Post by Murdoch » Tue Dec 18, 2012 12:18 am

Given that the two leads are CW gorgeous I'm not surprised at the inferred homoerotica (the two leads are brothers but the depraved minds of fan-fiction know no bounds).

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Murdoch
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:59 pm
Location: Upstate NY

Re: Supernatural

#4 Post by Murdoch » Fri Feb 08, 2013 9:41 pm

Not having listened to the naysayers who complain of a big drop-off in quality and originality once the series hits season 6, I continued on and am glad for it. While the sixth season struggles to find its place and does rehash themes of the series with little differentiation in execution, there's an amusing Twilight parody with the right mix of parody and Buffy-style vamp slaying that shows Dean in full badass mode. And I must admit to enjoying a season-long baddy in the shape of corporate America manufacturing a Soylent Green-style miracle food to fatten up the human population for mass consumption.

My interest is piqued by the most recent storyline involving the slacker grandson of a rabbi Nazi-fighter having to take charge of a massive golem. The series' greatest strength lies in its exploration of mythologies and I love that it no longer confines itself to the standard vampire/demon/etc. that run amok in seemingly every one of these supernatural shows but branches out to explore various cultural and religious mythologies. It looks like this golem storyline will continue, probably until the end of the season. I look forward to what the writers bring to the table, especially with their focus on the Nazis as the kind of monsters of the human world that Sam and Dean have always been fighting in the supernatural world.

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Murdoch
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Location: Upstate NY

Re: Supernatural

#5 Post by Murdoch » Fri Nov 27, 2020 12:10 am

MAJOR SPOILERS ABOUND FOR SERIES FINALE

Well, it's over. It's odd to watch the conclusion of a series that's aired roughly half my life, and which I began watching when the pilot premiered. The series took some big drops in quality over the years, as would any show that aired for a decade and a half, but it's still commendable that the writers maintained character consistency throughout and manifested a final villain that feels true to form for the show - God Himself. Any serial drama that lasts even half as long as this and has an overarching story trajectory is bound to have its filler moments, but boy did they lay the filler on heavy these past few seasons. Even in the last five episodes, half of them were throwaway self-contained stories that could have been lumped into any of the last five years.

Still, for all its flaws, it's a remarkably dour show. Neither Sam nor Dean have much in the way of romance in their lives, and the coda to Sam's life with him raising a family feels rather false after he and Dean spent the last 15 years untethered and lamenting how they could never return to family life after all they've been through.

Moreover, the bitter portrait of Christianity remained, with the faithful that occasionally appear throughout the show pitiable in their worship of an uncaring and sadistic deity. For all of the 14th season's flaws, God grinning and egging on Dean to kill Lucifer's son to provide a neat conclusion to His story is one of the standout moments of the series, Sam looking disgusted at his creator as he watches His bloodlust is kind of an a-ha moment, where I realized what the writers had been building all these years with the nebbish Chuck/God plotline, for what is God but the ultimate writer?

Dean's death felt poetic and actually caught me by surprise. I imagined the show would give him a big hero's send-off, killing the final Big Bad and going down in the fight. But no, instead the finale focuses on a rather run-of-the-mill hunting trip. Sam and Dean go to some desolate woodland to rescue some captured innocents from a few garden variety monsters, it all feels routine. Then Dean stumbles and is impaled by a stray metal rod. I've lost count of how many times the brothers have resurrected each other, so it felt rather powerful for Dean to tell Sam he just wanted it to be over. It says a lot about this show that it can kill its characters over and over, yet make one sting after all these years.

The epilogue was too upbeat for me, with Sam and Dean reuniting in heaven. Despite the claims that heaven was "fixed," that it no longer was just reliving old memories but allowed its inhabitants to create new ones in paradise, I can't help but think back on a monologue from Dean around the series' midway point. Dean, having been sent with Sam to the real world where both inhabit their actor selves in the most meta episode of the series, opines that such a world, where no God, angels or demons exist, is what they'd been striving for all along.

But I suppose it was too much to ask that the CW's flagship show end with its characters settling into annihilation, dying off without having to suffer continued life. At the same time, it makes me respect the show's complexity. Sam and Dean's opinions on life and death evolved as the show went on, and I can imagine Dean changing his tune once God is eliminated and he's no longer a puppet in His story. Both only long for non-existence because they find their lives so painful, and for them to escape that pain in the end and settle into paradise is rather welcome when I think it over. Although I think it won't take long for the men who killed God, the devil and hundreds of other monsters to get bored.

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