Supernatural

[louiselux]

Seeing as how new_kate sent me all of Supernatural (thank you!!) with instructions to watch it ready for connotations, I've begun my one-woman spn fest. I watched episodes 1-6 of season one last night. My deep thoughts so far ...

Dean Winchester is a huge woobie.

All the women love him, except the women seem essentially unimportant.

Everyone has fabulous hair.

There are not enough shots of Sam and Dean sleeping in their underwear, srsly.

Are Sam and Dean really brothers? I find this hard to believe. They don't act like brothers, exactly. I can't quite say what they are like though.

Dean has lots of delicious unresolved issues that we are left to guess at, whereas Sam is presented more straightforwardly angsting. I can see why Sam might be flipping out now that his girlfriend has died in the same way as his mother, but actually to me it doesn't feel real. It's something to do with the pacing and also because the writers should've developed Jessica as a person more effectively, rather than just dressing her in sexy clothes and letting us assume Sam must love her.

Sam really is a little bit spooky all by himself, having those pre-cognitive dreams about her death.

Coming back to the unimportant women thing, I dearly wish the scriptwriters would move on from women essentially being torture victims/evil/people to scream and be rescued. It's very boring.

Comments

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Apparently S1 is quite weak in comparison to S2, which is the one I watched. Their not-quite-brothers dynamic gets explored a bit better-- at least to me-- as time goes on.

They're actually making a big deal about presenting two strong, kick-ass female characters in S3. And of course a good portion of the fandom is screaming 'Mary Sue Love Interests ewww,' despite the fact that the producers insist that's not what will happen, and that-- as you say-- they desperately need strong women characters. S2 is better but I'm kind of excited about S3.

[rheasilvia.livejournal.com]

SPN didn't snag me until well into S1... it does get better, honestly, particularly in terms of characterization.

[lydia-petze.livejournal.com]

I'm not a raving SPN fan, but I do enjoy the show and am up to date with it. S2 is much stronger than S1 in almost every way, so you have lots to look forward to.

Sam really is a little bit spooky all by himself, having those pre-cognitive dreams about her death.

WORD.

[fleurrochard]

Dean Winchester is a huge woobie.

Please join the fandom-wide chorus of "Oh, Dean."
*g*

Are Sam and Dean really brothers? I find this hard to believe. They don't act like brothers, exactly.

Huh, my impression was actually that they act a LOT like brothers.

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

The first time I tried SPN I got kind of bored. The second time, coffeeandink hooked me up with a guide to which episodes to watch in season 1. Season 1 is very, very patchy, especially at the start. I can't link you to it because she's done that whole temp delete thing, but there is certainly hope.

Dean. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Dean.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

They are pretty! I'm not sure I have a more indepth comment than that, as I've seen only half of season 1.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Tav and I recently watched all of S1&2. And as others have said, season 1 is patchy, and it takes Sam a while to get past his Jessica angst and start to become a rounded and complex person. Season 2 is much stronger on lots of things, including characterization arcs.

Some very strong female characters become involved in later episodes, though the focus always remains on the brothers and most of them aren't recurring. In at least one episode they do kind of get indirectly called on their chivalrous sexism (which is annoying but plausible given the way they were raised without female role models who don't need any protecting, nevermind vengence). By which I mean, some of the writers do seem to be somewhat aware of the character's unintentional sexism in the show, and sometimes use an episode to comment on it.

There do continue to be some skanky race issues which left me very frustrated, because with very few exceptions the writers *don't* seem to be as aware of their racist casting as they are about the sexism. They do some cool things in the one episode where they do explicitly deal with racism, though!

I am still looking forward to season 3, and also to hearing more thoughts from you on the earlier episodes because I've actually seen them recently enough to comment on them, which is rarely the case with my brain and TV. ^_^

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

It gets better. Actually, episode 9 is usually the point at which you can see it, and then there is a run of three episodes that are actually really *good* (Asylum, Scarecrow, Faith), and you can practically *see* things start to click.

I do think they're very brotherly, though in the early episodes they're still sort of getting used to each other again, and also Dean is kind of getting used to seeing Sam as an adult.

And Padalecki's acting is much improved in season 2.

[andmydog.livejournal.com]

They're totally brothers. Totally. Like cousins, or, um, brothers.

...Seriously, the amount of subtext between those two almost wounds me. They act, not like there's this huge amount of UST, or like they're dating, but almost like they're friendly exes, who broke up when Sam went off to school and never quite got over each other but still have enough respect and admiration for the other to pretend like there's nothing there anymore, honest.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

they're brothers. it gets more obvious once sam stops angsting so much, along with one ep of prank wars.* Also, there's a bit where papa winchester shows up, and it's bloody clear how awesome casting was, since suddenly the sibling vibe pops out something chronic in the way you only see when you see the parents of kids who you think look nothing alike.

*incest vibes? what incest vibes? Brother. Totally brothers. In conclusion : brothers.