SUPERNATURAL season 5

I had mixed feelings about SUPERNATURAL season 4. On the one hand, I loved the introduction of angels to the storyline and how they were presented. On the other hand, the show was really brought down by the unfortunate casting of two key characters: Ruby v2.0 and Anna Milton. Both actresses sucked.

Thankfully, Genevieve Cortese [Ruby] was disposed of, but Julie McNiven [Anna] is still with us. I hope they keep her presence to a minimum. The rest of the recurring cast at the moment is much more promising. I like Rob Benedict as the prophet Chuck. His subtle reactions to Emily Perkins in the season premiere were funny, even though we only saw it through a webcam on her PC. Mark Pelegrino was a good choice to play Lucifer's vessel. And Kurt Fuller is fine as Zachariah. But the best news for season 5 is that Misha Collins has been upgraded to a series regular. He was underutilized last year, but he has great chemistry with Jensen Ackles, which has already been put to good use in season 5. The scene in the whorehouse a couple of weeks ago was hilarious.

This week's episode suffers from unfortunate stunt casting -- Paris Hilton? Really? Let's hope that's an aberration.

This was supposed to be the last season of SUPERNATURAL, but Eric Kripke has been a little ambivalent about that of late. It's hard to imagine how they can top the Apocalypse as a story arc, but I wouldn't be unhappy to see a season 6 if the writers can come up with something interesting.

SUPERNATURAL has always been plagued with terrible actresses in recurring roles. Remember how bad Katie Cassidy and Lauren Cohan were in Season 3? So bad that producers had to kill their characters off abruptly to ensure they'd never return (somehow, Cassidy keeps landing more regular gigs on TV series). It's hard to believe there are no talented 22-year-old actresses in Vancouver, but I'm starting to think so.

I much prefer SUPERNATURAL when it's doing more formulaic monster-of-the-week shows (I did THE X-FILES too), as I just don't think it carries enough weight to tackle anything as heavy as the Apocalypse. It is consistently entertaining, however, and Ackles and Jared Padalecki are appealing and believable as brothers (which is a rarer trait among TV siblings than you might think). Padalecki's mincing turn as Satan last week was a bit much though.

SUPERNATURAL is almost a sure thing to return next year, so long as The CW tosses enough dough to Kripke and his stars (who surely despise Vancouver Duchovny-style by now), because the network has no other good shows to replace it with. I'm still disappointed the writers' strike led to the cancellation of the episode in which Dean and Sam were going to battle Jason Voorhees!

And Jim Beaver rules!

On the other hand, it doesn't really fit it in with the Jr. Lifetime direction (women 18-34) the network head has been gunning for with their programming, and like any show, it's not getting any cheaper to make as it gets older.

REAPER got killed, and it's overall adult demo ratings weren't bad at all for a CW show.

(Granted, it's the CW, so we're talking really small numbers here )

This post has been edited by Kenneth Warner on Oct 5 2009, 12:00 AM

Are you kidding me? Women 18-34 love SUPERNATURAL. It's got a huge female demographic. And why not? It's about two cute guys [plus one cute angel] fighting evil. They never miss an opportunity to get Padalecki shirtless. The dude is buff.

I almost choked on my kung pao when they put an explicit wincest reference in the season 5 premiere. The Becky character is probably uncomfortably close to the kind of women who hang out in the most rabid fan forums.

Come to think of it, there was a wincest reference last year when they introduced Chuck:

Dean: There's Sam Girls and Dean Girls and...what's a slash fan?
Sam: As in Sam slash Dean, together
Dean: Like together, together? They do know we are brothers right?
Sam: Doesn't seem to matter.
Dean: Well that's just sick!

The writers are never afraid of riffing on the sometimes scary world of fandom.

This post has been edited by Lisa Larkin on Oct 5 2009, 02:39 AM

It's probably expensive by CW standards, particularly because the show has very few standing sets and shoots on (miserable, cold) locations a lot, but the FX are usually agonizingly cheap. But not as cheap as REAPER's, which were the worst on television (and like most contemporary shows, worse than FX on TV 30 years ago...compare the awful CGI in the FLASHFORWARD pilot to the cutting-edge model work in the SPACE: 1999 pilot to see what I mean...I can't figure out how visual effects cost more, but look cheaper than they did back in the day).

I do think CW will have to pony up some cash to get SUPERNATURAL's stars to live another year in Vancouver. I'm also guessing if CW had anything better to run, SMALLVILLE wouldn't still be on the air.

"The Curious Case of Dean Winchester" (all hail SUPERNATURAL for being just about the last series left to display episode titles) had a great role for Chad Everett, of all people, as an 80 (!)-year-old version of Jensen Ackles. Some good direction and probably some extensive rehearsal made the substitution feel seamless and led to some nice character moments. One of the best episodes of the season to date.

Maybe it won't return for a season 6... maybe...

http://ausiellofiles.ew.com/2009/08/30/wil...al-end-in-2010/

Nice to see Kripke is still as wishy-washy as ever regarding a season six. Maybe he's holding out for a big payday.

One thing I appreciate about this show as opposed to other shows with continuing storylines is that they do bring those story arcs to an end. There's nothing more frustrating than being kept on the hook for a long time, and when the resolution finally arrives, it's completely feeble. I still don't know what happened to Samantha Mulder and I resent Chris Carter for taking seven odd years to tell me.

I was ranting in another forum about how sad the current tv season is with its glut of hospital shows and police procedurals. I guess the SUPERNATURAL writers agree with me given Sam & Dean's adventures in TV Hell.

I can't wait for next week's "Supernatural" convention episode.

The boys' impressions of David Caruso were great.

Oh, and I hope, if you DVR'ed the show, you didn't zip past the fake commercial!

I almost did. Thankfully, I noticed the CW bug in the corner, which doesn't appear on real commercials. The commercial was probably the best part of the whole episode. Poor Sam.

Had my first real exposure to SUPERNATURAL this week, after many weeks ignoring it behind a book while my wife watched. (The Trickster episode you're talking about now.) Has the show always been this meta? I was impressed with the many levels it was working on, beyond the TV-hell commentary -- which was pretty audacious on its own -- to the global/sociopolitical. (Don't mean to come on like a prat here; I really thought that's where they were going with this.) Should I have been paying better attention all this time?

SUPERNATURAL is a rare show that started out with a pretty basic premise ["Buff Guys the Vampire Slayers" as Jim Beaver once put it] and has steadily evolved into something much more complex. It isn't always this meta, but since they introduced Chuck the prophet [who writes pulpy novels based on his visions of Sam & Dean's adventures], it has gotten much more so.

SUPERNATURAL, perhaps due in large part to the creative contributions of the late producer/director Kim Manners, has a lot of X-FILES in it, even beyond the basic premise of two partners traveling the U.S. hunting spooks. THE X-FILES wasn't afraid to flirt with its format either, parodying itself and television frequently and almost always doing it well.

SUPERNATURAL isn't quite as good as THE X-FILES, basically because it takes itself less seriously and its leads are not as strong as Duchovny and Anderson, but I do think it's a more consistent show, and there should be no qualms about mentioning the two series in the same breath. I have always believed that X-FILES fans would probably like SUPERNATURAL quite a bit.

I'd agree that X-FILES at its best was better than SUPERNATURAL, but I found the last two seasons of X-FILES virtually unwatchable. SUP has gotten stronger with each passing year. I almost wrote it off the first year because it was so derivative of X-FILES. I think the show found its groove about halfway through season 2. Maybe earlier. When was "Hollywood Babylon" with Gary Cole as the producer? That or "Nightshifter" was the tipping point for me. I do love the Ben Edlund episodes.

If you liked last week's episode with the trickster, you might want to seek out his other two appearances: "Tall Tales" from season 2 and "Mystery Spot" from season 3.

This post has been edited by Lisa Larkin on Nov 9 2009, 03:47 PM

I've yet to see it but I've been intrigued since someone here posted notes on a "UNIVERSAL" homage in sepia or b/w. It looks like something I'd enjoy and skimming reviews suggest a good mix of wide arcs and monsters of the week with a little more bite than BUFFY (which I'm re-watching at the moment). I'm also a fan of X-FILES and MILLENNIUM but I didn't see any of the last three X-FILES seasons - something I hope to rectify if I ever get through the complete boxed set I picked up last year. SUPERNATURAL is available in a cheap box with seasons 1-3 but I see there's a 4-season box coming before Christmas and I might wait for that. Heck, with all the stuff I have yet to watch, I might as well wait for SUPERNATURAL to reach it's final season so I can by a definitive compendium. I was in a store last week and they had about 4 or 5 CSI boxes, each dearer and more complete than the other.

Victor

That was another Ben Edlund episode, "Monster Movie". That and "Wishful Thinking" [also written by Edlund] were two of my favorite episodes from season 4.

Jeremy Carver is also one of their stronger writers. He wrote the truly twisted Christmas episode last year [that reminded me of Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS] as well as last week's "Changing Channels". Chuck the prophet's pen name is Carver Edlund in tribute to these two writers.