Friday, August 22, 2014

Still Supernatural After All These Years



I recently wrapped up watching the 9th season of Supernatural. 17 episodes were on my DVR for months.

My TV watching time is very limited during the week, so I mostly watched the show here and there on weekends. Now the season is finished and here are a couple of thoughts.

(I know the season ended a long time a go, but there will spoilers. Consider yourself warned.)

Generally, I thought it was a successful season. Supernatural is strongest when it follows the shows mythology. Nine years of continuity can be intimidating for new viewers, so the show makes a token effort to appeal to newbies with a few episodes that don’t tie in to the main story.  Some of those stand alone monster-of-the-week episodes worked well, except for “Bloodlines”, which was a backdoor pilot for a spinoff series–a failed pilot, as it turns out. In hindsight, it’s not hard to understand why the CW passed. The pilot was about as generic as a show with Supernatural in the title could be.

As for the major arc–the fallen angels, Metatron, Abaddon, Dean’s descent into evil–it took a surprising and therefore, refreshing turn (a turn which was spoiled by much press this summer. I’m not complaining. It’s my fault for waiting so long to watch the show. But had the big finale not been spoiled, I would have been stunned. Stunned, I tells ya!).

So Dean’s a demon. This sets up interesting story possibilities for next year. More good news is the promotion of Mark Sheppard and Misha Collins to series regular.

Confession time: does any other longtime Supernatural viewer get chills when the season finale begin? When that “The Road So Far” title card comes up, followed by “Carry On, My Wayward Son”, I’m in need of an adult diaper. Er, was that too much info?

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Reader Mail


I answer it in this week's column in the freakin' Ashland Beacon. You can read it online. It's on page 2.