CRAZED! TV Review
October/November 2016
I Discovered Supernatural on Netflix
Well, not exactly. More accurately, I’d heard of Supernatural long before I ever watched
an episode, but avoided it. Honestly, I was a loyal Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, Angel,
and Firefly Josh Whedon fan who
also had decided with zero evidence other than WB/CW cheese/beef cake soap remakes that Supernatural’s popularity must only be due to the good looks of
Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.
My arrogant pretentiousness led me to ignore it for about 8
years. Then one day, during a bout of the flu, while searching for something to
binge watch during my bed rest, I took the plunge on Netflix, telling myself if
it was bad, I lost nothing since I was confined by fever anyway. I was hooked,
like so many other fans after the first episode.
I watched every episode and season available on Netflix, and
checked out the rest from the library, then watched the episodes as broadcast
on TV or via Hulu once I was caught up. I wondered how I could have missed 8
seasons of a show this amazing. I’m still in love 3 seasons later as we enter a
4th year for me, the 12th for the show now beginning Season 12 on Oct 13.
[Possible Spoilers Ahead]
Season 12 Episode One: Nothing Revealed,
Nothing Resolved
The first episode of the season really doesn't resolve
anything from the cliffhanger ending of Season 11. It's more of a reminder of everything
that happened at the end of the final episode and a reintroduction to the Supernatural universe for viewers in
case some of us didn't binge watch Season 11 just before.
By the end of episode one, Sam is still prisoner in a
basement and torture victim of the British chapter of The Men of Letters. Dean
still has no idea where he is. Nobody, including Crowley, knows who Lucifer’s
new vessel is, meaning what he looks like. And Mary Winchester, yes, good old
burned to a crisp Mom, was brought back to life and is herself as far as we can
tell. About the only new thing in the entire hour is that Castiel comes back
from Heaven after being cast there at the end of Season 11 by Lady what's her
face of the BCoMoL when she kidnapped Sam.
Basically, all things we knew at the end of Season 11. In
the hands of even good television writers, this sort of nothing happening would
be boring, even to a die hard fan, but here's the thing, Supernatural may be a B grade Horror/Fantasy genre show, but it's a
B grade Horror/Fantasy genre show written by great writers who have a deep
understanding of how the long form narrative works, how serialized story
telling works, and a great abiding passion and love for both the show and it's
fans. These things keep the quality of Supernatural
consistent and superior year after year, and are why the show continues to
last for as long as it has.
How do the writers, producers, actors and others who work on
the show accomplish this? They do this by the continuity of characters in the
show, and by creating characters who have depth, underlying backstories, and
distinct human, relatable personalities that viewers can identify with.
They constantly remind viewers of these traits in every
episode or every season by taking the very small amount of screen time it takes
to accomplish this. In episode one this is done with just a look on Dean's face
in a quick reaction shot after Mary lovingly caresses the backseat of “Baby”
which reveals his embarrassment at being reminded that his parents had sex.
It's both a very Dean typical reaction and a typical human reaction when we are
reminded, even as adults that our parents are human, and therefore sexual
beings.
It's even more brilliant as it was communicated with no dialogue and
took up mere seconds of the 50 minutes episode time. It's the kind of thing
that's missing from other series in the same genre, shows like The Fringe, that should be great given
the pedigree of the show creators, but aren't due to the lack of attention to
character depth and development and a tendency by network executives to play it
safe. Things the Supernatural show
creators faced, yet resisted from the beginning by fighting and ignoring them
in spite of always being threatened with cancellation every season since.
Season Two Raps up Season 11’s finale, cements
Season 12 Big Bad
The episode that really resolves the cliffhanger of Season
11 and serves as an intro for what could come in Season 12, is this one.
Finally Sam gets rescued, we learn that Lucifer is Rick Springfield, and we
know that the BCoMoL or BMoL because that's shorter, are also going to be an
additional villain as we are teased by the mystery of its cleaner, Ketch/Catch.
I'm not really sure what the spelling is without access to a script.
We also get a great character moment and reminder of tone
with a side of comic relief when Dean gleefully devours pie while others,
except dear old Mom, look on aghast. The writers of this show understand when
to be serious and when to be funny. Again, these very quick scenes that might
be mistakenly cut from other genre shows, are what sets this show far above
just about every other show in this genre, excepting maybe earlier seasons of Grimm on NBC.
Episodes 3 & 4 Back To Tried & True
The next two episodes do something that I’m really happy
about. They return the show to its roots by reintroducing the early seasons’
concept of “monster of the week” while relegating the season’s “Big Bad(s)” to
subplot and season through line. It's a brilliant move that keeps the series
fresh while both tapping into fans’ nostalgia and attracting new viewers by not
alienating them with a plot that will lose them if they haven't watched the
show from season one.
Episode 3’s monster taps into one of my worst childhood
fears, Dolls, specifically the idea that all dolls are evil with a creepy
haunted doll that seems to freeze its victims to death from the inside. At the
same time we’re reminded of the Lucifer “Big Bad” number 1 subplot by scenes of
Cas, aka Agent Beyoncé teaming up with Crowley, aka Agent Jay Z, to hunt down
Lucifer.
Episode 4’s “monster of the week” turns out to be the mother
of a girl with psychic powers who’s imprisoned and tortured her daughter in the
family basement which inadvertently causes the deaths of at least two people
from stigmata and scrambled brains. However, the BMoL decide via Ketch/Catch
that the girl is the monster, and since the BMoL’s solution to every problem is
to kill it, he shoots her at a rest stop after Sam and Dean save her and safely
put her on a bus. This last scene serves to remind us of “Big Bad” number 2’s
subplot.
Keeping A Show Fresh For 12 Seasons
Supernatural has
staying power for many reasons, including the ones already mentioned above.
It's not an accident that this show has inspired such intense loyalty and
devotion from its fans, and that those things have earned it its own convention
in addiction to regular appearances by cast members and writers at Comicon.
The show’s writers routinely put character development over
plot movement, by weighting the breaths between conflicts as just as important,
if not more important than story development. Most shows fail at this, and it
shows. The time between action scenes just feels like boring filler, instead of
time to suture us and allow us to care about the characters because in spite of
fighting monsters, they are actually just like us.
Supernatural does
this, the writers and actors make us all Sam, Dean, Cas, and Crowley.
By
allowing us characters we can relate to through giving even monsters, demons,
angels, and God himself, human qualities and very human emotions and issues, Supernatural becomes much more than just
a B grade Horror/Fantasy genre serial. Instead the monsters, villains, and
challenges become stand ins for our own real life troubles and obstacles. Plus
how Sam and Dean bravely face their fears and challenges each episode, even
actively seek out new ones once one is conquered, inspires us and encourages us
to both have hope and to face our own. It's this that's really at the core of
the show’s popularity with fans, and why it continues to attract new ones with
each season. It's also what keeps the cast on the series season after season.
What other long running series survives even with changes in show runners? What
other series survives this long without at least one main cast member tempted
to leave in search of a movie career or just a change? I can't think of one.
Supernatural has
stayed alive for 12 seasons. I hope it's around for many more to come. For
myself, I’m excited to see what happens next week. I’m counting the days.
Supernatural airs
Thursday nights on the CW network at
9pm/8pm CT, check your local listings for exact time and channel. It also
streams on the CW app.
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