We've all heard the news, right?

[feliciakw]

The news has broken that Sera Gamble (who has been with SPN since S1) has opted not to renew her contract and will be (from the sounds of it) leaving SPN to pursue other development projects. She is being replaced by SPN veteran Jeremy Carver. I'm not surprised she opted not to renew her contract, given some of the very vocal opposition (some of which has been expressed with extreme and violent hatred) from the fandom. Or this could be the politic way of describing a different series of events.

I'm nonplussed (in the non-standard meaning of the word). While her skills as a showrunner are perhaps questionable, she has without question written or co-written some of my very favorite episodes of their season, if not the series (my favorites in bold):

1.03 Dead in the Water
1.12 Faith (one of my favorite eps, period. With one of the best lines describing faith that I've ever heard in broadcast TV.)
1.14 Nightmare
1.21 Salvation
2.03 Bloodlust
2.08 Crossroad Blues - (She well and truly freaked. me. out. with this one. Ask Izhi.)
2.13 Houses of the Holy
2.17 Heart
2.21 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part One (along with Part 2)
3.02 The Kids Are Alright
3.07 Fresh Blood
3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me
3.12 Jus in Bello
3.15 Time Is On My Side
4.02 Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester
4.09 I Know What You Did Last Summer
4.17 It's A Terrible Life
4.21 When The Levee Breaks
5.02 Good God Y'All
5.07 The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester
5.13 The Song Remains The Same
5.21 Two Minutes To Midnight
6.01 Exile On Main St.
6.11 Appointment in Samarra
6.21 Let It Bleed (Yes, as painful as this one was, and as dubious as the ending was, I liked it.)
7.01 Meet The New Boss
7.10 Death's Door (arguably the best dramatic episode of S7)
7.17 The Born-Again Identity

Actually, all the eps on this list are pretty good to varying degrees. Those bolded are just my very favorites of the ones listed.

There has been much rejoicing, complete with extremely rude send-off wishes from some. I'm not dissing people for their delight that there will be a change in showrunners next year (which, renewal now seems to be all but a formality), or their happiness that Sera is stepping down. To each their own. Her seasons had some clunkiness, but then, Kripke got a little out of control, too. I wish her well on her next project.

This does lead us to something Bob Singer (the real one, not the one who wears a trucker cap) said earlier about next season, that they're going to get away from the All Angst, All The Time, and get back to the Saving People, Hunting Things. This? I cannot argue with. This makes me happy. This I look forward to.

So, best wishes to Sera. Maybe we'll see each other around.

Yay! for saving people, hunting things, the brothers working side-by-side and fighting back-to-back! Maybe we'll get a little more insight into the stuff Dean has (not) been dealing with the past three seasons. Maybe we'll get some of the incidental humor back into the flavor of the show. Sera gets blamed for a lot of stuff that I don't think is solely her fault. However, if bringing Jeremy Carver back will get us back to Saving People, Hunting Things in a fleshed out, creative way, I'm all for it!

Comments

[feliciakw.livejournal.com]

Oh, it wouldn't surprise me at all if she was asked to leave. This kind of feels like the diplomatic way of couching such an announcement to the public.

I don't follow ratings info too closely, but I thought we were pretty steady this year, what with being second only to TVD. But the grief she got from a very loud portion of the fandom seems to me that it would have fed into the decision, whosever it was. I hope not, but that's just my impression--fans screaming for her head on a platter, followed by news that "she's opted not to renew her contract."

Yes, the buck stops here. I get that. I just get so tired of reading fan opinions about how things were so perfect and brilliant and flawlessly executed under Kripke's reign and how the show went to Hades in a handbasket once Sera took over. Kripke was not all that and a bag of chips, and Sera was not evil incarnate. They both had their strengths, and they both had their weaknesses. Unfortunately, Sera seems to have been placed in a position for which she was not suited. She's always been one of my favorite writers for the show, but S6 was rocky in places. Still, for it's roughness, I didn't loathe it with every fiber of my being the way some fans seem to.

I expect that Bob *did* know about this change when he gave that interview. It just sounds like he did. When he says "we haven't even talked about this," it just sounds to me like he's avoiding mention of this change in leadership, since it had yet to be announced.

My hope is that they address some of the things I've been longing for them to address--mainly, Dean's state of mind and his unique "Dean-ness" in the world of the supernatural, and that they get back to the Saving People, Hunting Things \o/ and the sharp, clever execution of urban legends and the humorous flavor and the brothers standing side-by-side and back-to-back and Yay! \o/

As I said, nonplussed. Not particularly bothered. Glad that it's a SPN alumn taking over, so we shall see.