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SPN S3 fly-by review
Well, gang, I know I've been lax about my S3 reviews. I've been re-watching and I've made a couple observations, but overall, the thinky is just too too to me to put into words. But . . .
When S3 was airing in first run, I didn't mind it. Not nearly as much as a lot of the fandom did. The bloom was still on the rose, as I didn't start watching in first run until the Christmas special. But here's my primary observation:
S3 loses a great deal of its punch after S4.
Part of me expected this. Knowing the when, where, and how of Dean's return takes the edge off his going to Hell as we see it. Don't get me wrong, the scenes still play well, but I'm not left with the intense flailing that I was in first run.
Also, the season as a whole feels a little uneven. I realize that the WGA strike threw a big ol' wrench into a lot of things, including the flow of the season. And in general, I like the individual eps. But as an overall flowing story arc of Dean's last year? Yeah. The strike really took the wind out of the sails. The triumvirate of DaLDoM, Mystery Spot, and Jus in Belo, then getting cut off? So not cool. I don't even mind that Ghostfacers is the next ep. It just seems that it never quite recovers from the loss of momentum. Disappointing.
Also from the far side of S4, I'm watching Ruby and Lilith now and going Bzuh? Okay, so . . . Ruby wants to trap Lilith and make her the final seal . . . But she can't do that until the first seal is broken. So . . . does that mean she never had any intention of helping Sam save Dean, i.e., learn how to kill Lilith? That's how I would have written it, but it would have been . . . clearer and better played, I hope. Was she just stringing them both along, marking time until the (by the end of S4) two years had passed? Ruby more than any other character, I think, makes me believe strongly that Kripke & Co. are making this up as they go. (I kinda figured that anyway, but the unevenness of Ruby sorta points that up to me.)
Also, Bela. My thoughts and some of my hypotheses regarding Bela are mocked by my nearest and dearest, so I won't get into those. I will say that I really wish she could have been either a character I hated to love or a character I loved to hate. As it is, she was neither. An interesting diversion. A verbal sparring partner for Dean. Not an arch-nemesis to be outwitted, but rather an ungainly obstacle in the overall course of the story. Most disappointing.
S4 disc come out on DVD on Sept. 1, if I understand correctly. And I'll be away from the computer the second half of this week. So . . . 22 eps divided by 10 days . . . that's . . . two and odd change eps per day to get totally caught up. I can do it, but I think it might drive Geo a little nutty.
When S3 was airing in first run, I didn't mind it. Not nearly as much as a lot of the fandom did. The bloom was still on the rose, as I didn't start watching in first run until the Christmas special. But here's my primary observation:
S3 loses a great deal of its punch after S4.
Part of me expected this. Knowing the when, where, and how of Dean's return takes the edge off his going to Hell as we see it. Don't get me wrong, the scenes still play well, but I'm not left with the intense flailing that I was in first run.
Also, the season as a whole feels a little uneven. I realize that the WGA strike threw a big ol' wrench into a lot of things, including the flow of the season. And in general, I like the individual eps. But as an overall flowing story arc of Dean's last year? Yeah. The strike really took the wind out of the sails. The triumvirate of DaLDoM, Mystery Spot, and Jus in Belo, then getting cut off? So not cool. I don't even mind that Ghostfacers is the next ep. It just seems that it never quite recovers from the loss of momentum. Disappointing.
Also from the far side of S4, I'm watching Ruby and Lilith now and going Bzuh? Okay, so . . . Ruby wants to trap Lilith and make her the final seal . . . But she can't do that until the first seal is broken. So . . . does that mean she never had any intention of helping Sam save Dean, i.e., learn how to kill Lilith? That's how I would have written it, but it would have been . . . clearer and better played, I hope. Was she just stringing them both along, marking time until the (by the end of S4) two years had passed? Ruby more than any other character, I think, makes me believe strongly that Kripke & Co. are making this up as they go. (I kinda figured that anyway, but the unevenness of Ruby sorta points that up to me.)
Also, Bela. My thoughts and some of my hypotheses regarding Bela are mocked by my nearest and dearest, so I won't get into those. I will say that I really wish she could have been either a character I hated to love or a character I loved to hate. As it is, she was neither. An interesting diversion. A verbal sparring partner for Dean. Not an arch-nemesis to be outwitted, but rather an ungainly obstacle in the overall course of the story. Most disappointing.
S4 disc come out on DVD on Sept. 1, if I understand correctly. And I'll be away from the computer the second half of this week. So . . . 22 eps divided by 10 days . . . that's . . . two and odd change eps per day to get totally caught up. I can do it, but I think it might drive Geo a little nutty.
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But in the ultimate scheme of things? It doesn't matter whether or not it was Bela. Interesting, yeah, but not, "Oh wow!!! Now it all makes sense!!!" or being a jaw-dropper in some other way.
Bela was, in a lot of ways, a really wasted character. There could have been some serious potential there.
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I didn't care much about Bela and i agree on Ruby. Though you always can fanwank her behaviour if you want to.
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He thought angels would be cool to try for a few episodes, and it went well so he kept them. Considering the story since, that demonstrates just how much there is made up as they go along.
That one, and the "24 - Dennis Hopper on drugs" answers were surprisingly forthright, I thought.
I agree totally about the Ruby/Lilith plan being illogical in hindsight, and clearly made up as they went along. However, it's possible he will fix it up a little and re-engineer it in S5, when he explains YED's plan and brings back to tidy up the loose ends, just about everyone who isn't dead (and some who are). They're imaginative people. I hope they don't get too distracted by the exciting Lucifer story to remember all their previous clues and loose ends. I was encouraged by Eric's spoiler about remembering the (spoiler) pebngbna ivehf