I can't believe how I've gone from disliking the idea of anime to being stoked that Supernatural has been turned into one. (I think Fruits Basket was my gateway drug.) Anyway, the monster of the week styles of Supernatural and anime seem like a great fit. Here's the trailer:
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Showing posts with label supernatural. Show all posts
Showing posts with label supernatural. Show all posts
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Supernatural: Season 4
Supernatural, the show about two brothers beating the crap out of monsters every week, got darker and more interesting through Seasons 3 and 4.
Season 3 dealt with Sam and Dean Winchester trying to simultaneously fight an army of demons that had been unleashed on earth, and figure out a way to evade a particularly nasty deal with the devil. I actually liked Season 3's storyline a lot (especially its character arc for Dean) and thought it would have benefitted from the writers compensating for the season being cut short by the writers' strike by delivering many more character-centred episodes.
As it was, Season 3 contained many what I call 'bookend' episodes - a character issue is presented in a scene at the start of the show, the events of that episode's hunt unfold (with maybe an occasional reference to that character issue), and then in a dramatic scene at the end (usually a conversation between the two brothers in their car) the issue is progressed or resolved. That structure felt very unsatisfying, and only the fact that many Season 3 episodes were FRACKING GREAT (Mystery Spot, Jus in Bello, A Very Supernatural Christmas) compensated for it.
Season 4, however, changed all this. Rather focusing episodes around a monster of the week, the writers started breaking stories by deciding on the issue in the brothers' relationship they wanted to showcase, figuring out the emotional beats of that story, and then designing a monster around that. As a result the show began to feel like it was drawing from the best work of Freaks and Geeks and Everwood, as well as any number of monster of the week series.
Even the bookend episodes are better (as a result of this change). Take something like Episode 4, which deals with Dean's suspicions about Sam's blood, and the question of whether people can choose to not be a monster gets strongly. That issue gets set up at the start, and the writers take quite a long time establishing it, until we really feel it. And then that issue is not only present in the monster, but addressed in actual scenes between the brothers during the episode. Sure, it's pretty on the nose, but it's also satisfying.
The tone of the show has become darker, a bit more sombre. There are still wisecracks, but taking itself more seriously. And it's more satisfying as a result.
The show grows stronger and more interesting throughout the season. By halfway through, I felt it had become a dark, funny, slightly morally complex war story. By the end of the season, I felt it was teaching me how to write TV - treating its characters with respect while being unafraid to damage them, and exploring exactly how much series mythology and continuity the show could stand.
Whereas Seasons 1, 2, and 3 had ... patchy episodes, Season 4 is pretty much strong across the board. In fact, the episode 'The Monster at the End of This Book', manages to combine hilarious entertainment with an such an unbelievable amount of meta (while being vital to the show's mythology) that I'm going to use it as a touchstone for the series I'm currently developing.
Grades so far:
Season 1: B- (except for the finale, which is an A+)
Season 2: B+
Season 3: B (but contains a couple of A+ episodes)
Season 4: A
Season 3 dealt with Sam and Dean Winchester trying to simultaneously fight an army of demons that had been unleashed on earth, and figure out a way to evade a particularly nasty deal with the devil. I actually liked Season 3's storyline a lot (especially its character arc for Dean) and thought it would have benefitted from the writers compensating for the season being cut short by the writers' strike by delivering many more character-centred episodes.
As it was, Season 3 contained many what I call 'bookend' episodes - a character issue is presented in a scene at the start of the show, the events of that episode's hunt unfold (with maybe an occasional reference to that character issue), and then in a dramatic scene at the end (usually a conversation between the two brothers in their car) the issue is progressed or resolved. That structure felt very unsatisfying, and only the fact that many Season 3 episodes were FRACKING GREAT (Mystery Spot, Jus in Bello, A Very Supernatural Christmas) compensated for it.
Season 4, however, changed all this. Rather focusing episodes around a monster of the week, the writers started breaking stories by deciding on the issue in the brothers' relationship they wanted to showcase, figuring out the emotional beats of that story, and then designing a monster around that. As a result the show began to feel like it was drawing from the best work of Freaks and Geeks and Everwood, as well as any number of monster of the week series.
Even the bookend episodes are better (as a result of this change). Take something like Episode 4, which deals with Dean's suspicions about Sam's blood, and the question of whether people can choose to not be a monster gets strongly. That issue gets set up at the start, and the writers take quite a long time establishing it, until we really feel it. And then that issue is not only present in the monster, but addressed in actual scenes between the brothers during the episode. Sure, it's pretty on the nose, but it's also satisfying.
The tone of the show has become darker, a bit more sombre. There are still wisecracks, but taking itself more seriously. And it's more satisfying as a result.
The show grows stronger and more interesting throughout the season. By halfway through, I felt it had become a dark, funny, slightly morally complex war story. By the end of the season, I felt it was teaching me how to write TV - treating its characters with respect while being unafraid to damage them, and exploring exactly how much series mythology and continuity the show could stand.
Whereas Seasons 1, 2, and 3 had ... patchy episodes, Season 4 is pretty much strong across the board. In fact, the episode 'The Monster at the End of This Book', manages to combine hilarious entertainment with an such an unbelievable amount of meta (while being vital to the show's mythology) that I'm going to use it as a touchstone for the series I'm currently developing.
Grades so far:
Season 1: B- (except for the finale, which is an A+)
Season 2: B+
Season 3: B (but contains a couple of A+ episodes)
Season 4: A
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Supernatural - the Season 2 finale
Hmm. It was good, but it makes me wonder what the season would have looked like if it had focused on telling the over-aching story as opposed to filling a 22-episode order. I suspect it would have been considerably shorter.
Definitely interested in checking out Season 3, though. No spoilers: A main character made a decision very early on in the final episode that has set up a 'ticking clock' situation that I'm fascinated to see play out.
Definitely interested in checking out Season 3, though. No spoilers: A main character made a decision very early on in the final episode that has set up a 'ticking clock' situation that I'm fascinated to see play out.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Supernatural - the rest of Season 2
Supernatural continues to be a entertaining horror-for-TV show. It's been interesting seeing it mix:
All the episodes have been fun, but the standouts for me are: No Exit (their take on 'Saw'), Nightshifter (weirdly, I feel it's inspired by 'Inside Man' and it's a great sequel to a Season 1 ep), Heart (werewolves, and a pretty amazing conclusion), and Hollywood Babylon (an satire of trashy Hollywood movies - Pearce, if there's one episode you should watch it's this one).
This second season has basically put all the pieces into place for a third season dealing with a war of demons vs hunters. I'm about to watch the two part season finale, and my expectations are high. The end of Season 1 had the highest proportion of cliffhangers-and-twists to running time of any episode of TV I've seen since the Season 1 finale of Twin Peaks.
- brotherly banter and matter-of-fact attitude towards dealing with monsters
- an episode of the week structure that uses several genre tropes (the Rashomon episode, the episode where they live a completely different life)
- serious emotional character developments and philosophical arguments, and
- a solid mythology for the show.
All the episodes have been fun, but the standouts for me are: No Exit (their take on 'Saw'), Nightshifter (weirdly, I feel it's inspired by 'Inside Man' and it's a great sequel to a Season 1 ep), Heart (werewolves, and a pretty amazing conclusion), and Hollywood Babylon (an satire of trashy Hollywood movies - Pearce, if there's one episode you should watch it's this one).
This second season has basically put all the pieces into place for a third season dealing with a war of demons vs hunters. I'm about to watch the two part season finale, and my expectations are high. The end of Season 1 had the highest proportion of cliffhangers-and-twists to running time of any episode of TV I've seen since the Season 1 finale of Twin Peaks.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Supernatural - Season 2, the first 5 episodes
Supernatural: a show about two brothers who drive around the States in a Ford Impala killing monsters.
It should be the sort of show I hate with its 'kill a new monster every week' episode structure, but I really like it for two reasons: (i) attitude - the brothers are sarcastic, listen to metal, and kick monster ass with a variety of shotguns and crowbars, and (ii) sub-plots.
Right now, the show is juggling the grieving process, a hunters-bar sub-plot complete with an (I'm guessing) unwitting incestuous romance for Dean, the mystery of what Dad said to Dean, Dean is a psychic, (possibly) a crazy hunter who wants to get revenge on the brothers, (possibly) a peace-nik vampire, and a demon who wants to bring about the apocalypse. And it's doing it all fairly effortlessly while telling satisfying, self-contained stories every week.
I'm also a fan of the characterisation: what started out as a fairly simplistic 'Dean is a bad boy, Sam is a good boy' dynamic got nicely complicated about halfway through Season 1 when we realised that Dean has always tried to live up to his father's dreams, and plays the peace-maker between his Dad and Sam, who rebelled by quitting the family business of monster-hunting and going to university. I admire this because it was simply a matter of viewing facts we already knew in exactly the opposite way - and as a result it elegantly demonstrates that both brothers have elements of each other in them.
Nice, solid, 'horror movie but for TV' entertainment.
It should be the sort of show I hate with its 'kill a new monster every week' episode structure, but I really like it for two reasons: (i) attitude - the brothers are sarcastic, listen to metal, and kick monster ass with a variety of shotguns and crowbars, and (ii) sub-plots.
Right now, the show is juggling the grieving process, a hunters-bar sub-plot complete with an (I'm guessing) unwitting incestuous romance for Dean, the mystery of what Dad said to Dean, Dean is a psychic, (possibly) a crazy hunter who wants to get revenge on the brothers, (possibly) a peace-nik vampire, and a demon who wants to bring about the apocalypse. And it's doing it all fairly effortlessly while telling satisfying, self-contained stories every week.
I'm also a fan of the characterisation: what started out as a fairly simplistic 'Dean is a bad boy, Sam is a good boy' dynamic got nicely complicated about halfway through Season 1 when we realised that Dean has always tried to live up to his father's dreams, and plays the peace-maker between his Dad and Sam, who rebelled by quitting the family business of monster-hunting and going to university. I admire this because it was simply a matter of viewing facts we already knew in exactly the opposite way - and as a result it elegantly demonstrates that both brothers have elements of each other in them.
Nice, solid, 'horror movie but for TV' entertainment.
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