The Winchesters, back from hiaitus

[olivermoss]

I was sort of half paying attention for most of it. The rockstar outfit that Gabriel put on Carlos the highlight of the episode.

Then, the tattoo thing. Not the music fire one, the other one. Okay, so a big problem I had with the OG show was that when they went from demons to leviathans as the big bad, they quickly took the 'new threat' and had it functionally work like the old one: they possess people and you can check using their chemical sensitivity, etc. Basically, they just reskinned demons so that the episodes could use the same formula over and over and over.... so when Samuel revealed a tattoo to prevent being possessed by an Akreda I rolled my eyes pretty hard.

It's the same thing over and over again. After the first few seasons, the show cannot handle not having the same tight mechanics of possession, anti-possession tattoos, baddie capture box, baddie chemical sensitivity, etc. They stick to it so closely. Every enemy threat is the same thing with a fresh coat of paint.

To be fair, part of the point of the show is to deliver more of what's been bringing in the money, more SPN. But leviathans so quickly became exactly like demons... and akreda are also demons. It's like every time the show tries to do something different, it lasts for about 3 seconds before the writers go 'nope, can't handle it' and run back to the same, very tight formula.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, it's like the Dragonball Z issue of having to bring in bigger badder baddies, and the heroes having to get stronger and unlock hitherto unknown strength to beat them... but having every big bad and every new powerup functionally behave the same exact way, because that's the formula!

[olivermoss]

It's like they only know how to write one story... just a broken record

[mistressofmuses]

I realize that a LOT of serial storytelling, with any ongoing series, relies on formula. If you're watching a case-of-the-week or monster-of-the-week show, you expect there to be a case presented, clues followed, a twist, and the case solved, or a monster to appear, and the heroes to seek it out, and the monster to be defeated.

But the specific *patterns* within that, where every new Big Bad is just... reskinned or palette-swapped demons that are dealt with in *exactly the same way* that gets... extremely stale and bland.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, and I love procedurals. I've watched a lot of crime shows. Leverage is effectively a procedural. But to be 'here is a new thing' and then quickly collapse it into the exact shape of the old is just stagnation... but who knows, maybe reheated SPN is what some people want. I mean, I get it. I will watch not-great stuff out of comfort and familiarity. But it just feels like the writers are just stuck on repeat

[mistressofmuses]

Exactly! There's formula and then there's... copy-paste. Though yeah, if they're trying to just be "it's like more Supernatural, just... literally more of it", then... mission accomplished? And maybe there is an audience for that, but it's sort of a shame, because I would personally have been more interested in something that explored some of the missed opportunities of Supernatural.
Then again, I'm also not their audience, so what I'd be theoretically interested in is probably not exactly their concern, lol.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it doesn't feel like innovating within the 3 act MOTW formula, it's feels like a complete failure of imagination. It feels stunted.