Supernatural "Rewatch" end of Season One!

I'm trying something a little new with my product ads. Not sure how much I'll like it or if I'll switch back to the Amazon Associates thing. Not that either is bringing in money for me. I would love it so much if I could get at least the money I spend on domain registration through ads, anybody got ideas for that? Anyway, nobody cares about that, it's time for the SEASON ONE FINALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL REWATCH POSTS!

Salvation: Part One - So the big thing I have to say about this episode is "thank goodness, we're finally here!" And also "thank you for having some pay off for all of that set-up!" Finally, Meg has a larger purpose. Finally, Sam's visions mean something and matter to the plot more than just being a convenient device (though honestly they're still a bit of a convenient device here, but hey, progress!). Finally, the complicated relationship between the Winchesters is going somewhere! It might even be somewhere that makes a season of yo-yo emotions worth it somehow, but I was holding out judgement at this point.

Everything about this episode was well done, and when I was starting to feel a bit lukewarm about the whole show, it's a good thing this came around. I wasn't entirely sure I'd keep going after the end of season one, at the least I was going to call up people who had seen further and ask them if it was worth it or if I should just skip ahead or something. But thankfully it didn't come to that.

John Winchester's laying the groundwork for his meeting with Meg, I loved. The brother's and how they dealt with each other, their dad, and their own emotions. It was all good. It almost (almost) makes me forgive the show for not letting them grow a bit more, because this was a good emotional place for them to be for this story. I have my arguments on what they should have done instead, but whatever, I enjoyed it and I'll let it all go. Even my two favorite shows had uneven first seasons (though you can't accuse B5 of not having plot and character development).

Though I expected this episode to actually be the cliffhanger season finale. Though I had an idea what I was in for in the next episode, this was where most people would have ended it. But instead Supernatural ups the stakes EVEN MORE.

Devil's Trap: Part Two - I maybe should have done this as just one long review of the two episodes together, because everything I have to say about this one I've kind of already said. But I love the fact that the show revealed aspects of John Winchester's character not by having him do something, but because of Dean and Sam knowing their father so well.

Plus, I have to say - Bobby instantly became my favorite character pretty much the second he stepped on screen. I like the idea of the show branching out into having a few more recurring characters, because having to have the emotional arc of every episode dependent on the brothers was getting worn. With another family-type figure in their life, they can start to really do something new or explore the same ideas from new angles. And plus, Bobby just seems really freakin' awesome.

The episode succeeds because it takes a physical confrontation and makes it an emotional one instead, which is what all good television should do. I really liked it, and though I think the last thirty seconds were a bit of a cop-out, it proved that the boys aren't safe and that their journey is just going to continue. And it was probably the best way in the world to make sure that I put in the next disc to start season two because there was no WAY I wasn't going to find out what happened next.

Now that I'm done with season one, I'm going to review a few other shows for a little bit before moving on to season two! But I am going to keep watching, I'm really getting into this show.

Supernatural Season One "Rewatch"

Like I pointed out last week, this isn't really a "rewatch" so much as a "I'm watching it for the first time." Kind of, I actually watched these episodes back when they aired, but it's been forever so I've forgotten almost everything.

Two episodes a week, first post was last week, check out the "supernatural rewatch" tag to read them all!

Dead In The Water: The thing I liked best about this episode is that it gave Dean a chance to do something, because the way he connected with Lucas was a great moment for him. Since the show has only just started, it was a good piece of character development.

As for the rest, it's a completely forgettable episode. Like I mentioned in my post about Wendigo, we've got another revolving door girl who shows up for one episode, flirts with one of the boys and is gone. At least it was Amy Acker, who is a great actress to be sure. But the point of her character was lost on me really. It makes me want to make some kind of graphic or something to start adding up how many women are going to show up just long enough to be in trouble and be saved by Sam and Dean.

The mystery itself was barely a mystery, and really predictable. Things definitely aren't looking up for the show at this point, but Sam and Dean are still interesting enough, and I know enough about what happens to keep watching.

Phantom Traveler: This was so unintentionally hilarious. First of all, new girl of the week! This time a flight attendant. I did like her quite a bit actually, but she's still the third in a line of random women showing up just to be a minor character, get saved, possibly help kill the bad guy, and go off into the sunset to never be seen again.

I'm glad that Dean acknowledged that he drives everywhere, and I'm sure better blogs than me have gone through to establish how much time the brothers spend on the road. Longer than five hours and I start to get stir crazy and want to harm somebody, so I have absolutely no idea how they spend five days in a car and haven't gone into the weapons to kill each other.

The effects in this episode are pretty silly, but my favorite thing is how absolutely impossible the entire story is. At first I thought the episode must have been made before 9/11 but it turns out it was a few years later so I have no clue how they thought any of these was even vaguely feasible. This episode exists in a world we haven't lived in since the 90's.

Also, did not help how uncomfortable I am with flying.

Eventually I'll be getting to later episodes that are more interesting and I have more to say about! The early parts of the first season is just so...formulaic.

Supernatural "Rewatch"

So this project is not actually a traditional rewatch like most people blog about because I've actually not watched Supernatural before. I got about six episodes in and then forgot to watch one week and just never remembered to catch back up. But tumblr, once again, convinced me to give it another shot. That and we needed something to take the place of Revenge. So I'm going to try an experiment and actually write this up like a rewatch blog. We'll see how this goes and how long it lasts, right now I'm only committing to the first season for now. I'll try to do two episodes per post.

Pilot

It's pretty weird to see these guys so young, but that wears off pretty quick and you end up along for the ride. The pilot is a little weird for me to watch because I have such patchy information about what happens later. So I ended up annoying my best friend by asking her a ton of weird questions.

It's great to see a pilot that really works. We meet the characters, we establish their personalities quickly, we reveal their history (at least as much as we need). We give them a long standing goal (find their father/figure out what killed their mom).

We even establish Sam perfectly as our reluctant hero, and give him motivation to go on the quest. I mean, you know even without knowing anything about the show that Sam isn't going back to law school. But you have to give him the reason WHY. Also, whoever came up with that visual of the woman on the ceiling catching on fire? Two gold stars for you.

One thing I loved was that right off the bat the show was willing to use more obscure mythology and dig into other supernatural phenomena for the stories. This more than almost anything sold me on it, we didn't jump straight to standard ghosts and demons (though it still didn't take long).

Wendigo

One thing that struck me about this episode was that Supernatural is a show that actually does a pretty good job with the set up and pay off. It's nice that it gets that from mystery shows or procedurals instead of just following along the paths of most sci-fi or paranormal shows where they just suddenly hit you with a "Oh, he had it all along" excuse when it helps move the plot along. "How are we going to get out of this one?" "Oh, just give him a screwdriver." "Where would he have gotten a screwdriver?" "Who cares?"

Anyway, Wendigo actually reminds me a bit of The X-Files, basically because that was another show that starts off strong with the pilot and then just had a relatively tame monster of the week second episode. Of course, most shows would be lucky to be as good as X-Files, so that's not a bad thing.

To be honest, there's little about this episode that sticks out. I get the sense that we're going to have a revolving parade of random girls that show up for one episode and we never see again. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It feels a bit patronizing "oh, girls, I know you don't have a female lead on this show so every episode we'll give you a random chick so that you'll keep tuning in, 'kay?"

One thing I do appreciate them getting away from is the dynamic of the "one skeptic among believers" thing that so many shows *coughOnceUponATimecough* have been playing lately. Sam and Dean both believe. They've seen it. Sometimes there's a side character that doubts them, but in general (at least in this episode) people are like "actually, this doesn't make sense and these guys seem pretty confident so let's do what they're asking for now at least." Which is pretty refreshing.