I Just Said This To Ahillmadeof42dogs , But I Decided To Also Make A Post. Honestly Sometimes It Really

'He will always be my Ultimate Rival.'

I’ve honestly come to the end of my patience with this show. No more.

Supernatural 11.10

When it was first suggested that Lucifer may be making a return to Supernatural, I was among the first to express some skepticism. Not only did it strike me as lazy writing, to resurrect a villain defeated five seasons before, I also had no confidence that this writing team could do the character justice. Experience is instructive, and I fully expected that Carver’s version of Lucifer would be as shallow and spiritless as many of his other villains have been. If it seemed that I was more upset by that thought, than I have been by the treatment of other villains, that is because I believe that the Lucifer of Classic Supernatural, and the story told around him, is such a powerful and complete piece of writing. A piece of writing that I did not want to see subjected to Carver’s usual vandalism.

Unexpectedly, however, I was given cause to doubt my gut instinct on the subject. The first half of season 11 aired, and I was pleasantly surprised. Suddenly it wasn’t the plastic, tawdry junk I had been subjected to for the preceding three seasons. There were episodes that I enjoyed; there was compelling writing, and engaging characters, and Sam and Dean looked a little bit more like Sam and Dean than they had in a long time. For a moment, that ridiculously little flame of hope burning deep in my fannish heart, leapt. Perhaps Carver had clued in to just what a disaster he had made of the show, had recovered his soul and had become again the writer that had given us AVSC and Mystery Spot.

Of course, I should have listened to my gut. Whatever goodwill was earned by episodes 1-9 of season 11, it was disintegrated by the contrived garbage I watched last night.

The only redeeming feature of “The Devil in the Details”, was the acting. With one notable exception, everyone was on their A-game. Pelegrino and Padaelcki were mesmerizing together, and Jensen Ackles was as much Dean as I have ever seen. Even the ridiculous Pantomime Dames of Supernatural, Crowley and his mother, earn a mention for their solid performance (the nonsensical pre-credit sequence notwithstanding). And, I suppose, I should also credit the “broments”. Dean’s “have you met me” line was perfect, and Sam’s strong statement of faith in his brother was a particularly satisfying moment, following as it did four seasons where one might have been forgiven for thinking the brothers really didn’t like each other. If I hesitate to laud those gems of fraternal devotion, it’s because the totality of the episode had the effect of making those moments feel like obligations. They were added because that’s the “Supernatural formula”, and it’s what the fans’ expect. In other words, poor currency that didn’t purchase nearly enough goodwill to endure the remainder of the episode.

I’m not even sure where to begin with my substantive criticism, because there was so much that disappointed, or straight-out offended me. I suppose Lucifer is the obvious jumping point. My principal concern when I heard the Devil was returning for a major part in season 11, was a conviction (not disproved) that Carver would not be able to do that character justice, but worse would completely negate everything that had gone before. The Winchester’s war with the Morningstar was a complete, and powerful story; “Swan Song” the perfect denouement to the drama and pathos of season 5. That fight needed no further elaboration, it needed no further examination. It was perfect: Sam and Dean defeated the Devil, and they did it with brotherly love. Perfection doesn’t require elaboration. Resurrecting the Devil after that would be like Sauron climbing out of the rubble of Mount Doom, or the Emperor clawing his way back up the Death Star’s reactor shaft, or Voldemort appearing on the back of Lucius Malfoy’s head; in other words, a piece of poor quality fanfic, that rendered the trauma and sacrifice of the heroes completely nugatory.

That is, of course, exactly what I think happened last night. In one episode, Jeremy Carver and his team have succeeded in completely invalidating everything that Sam and Dean fought and died for. And for what benefit? The totality of the dialogue in 11.10 was a redux of themes in season 5; almost verbatim in some places. That doesn’t even deserve the title of elaboration; it’s naked, lazy plagiarism. Even more offensive than that, was the opportunity the writers took to make their voices heard through the dialogue. The whole sequence of Lucifer’s play, to the backdrop of Sam and Amelia, was overwhelmingly redolent of Jeremy Carver’s known, and particular, opinion on the brothers and their relationship. I didn’t hear Lucifer speaking in that sequence, I heard Jeremy Carver via Andrew Dabb. Writing 101 teaches that the writer’s voice should never be heard, not even in the narrative; it’s for your characters to communicate your argument, if you have one to make, and communicate it subtly. Not as a piece of anvil-dropping that amounted to nothing so much as a rebuttal to criticism. This is what I heard in that dialogue; not an expression of Lucifer’s character, but an argument directed at the fandom, or at best, a piece of very thin apologia for the character’s resurrection.

Invalidating Sam’s 140 years in hell, and enduring Carver’s lecture, are of course, not the only reasons why resurrecting Lucifer is a bad idea. The other obvious problem is the appalling creative laziness it implies. Apparently, this writing team is completely bereft of ideas for antagonists, themes and characterization. It is an appalling thing to acknowledge, that since Carver took over, the only original villain of the Supernatural universe, is its most irritating, Metatron. Almost all of the female villains – Eve, Abaddon, Rowena, Amara – are near carbon copies of each other, because again apparently the writing team can’t contemplate any female roles that aren’t a version of “sassy hot bad ass, usually with a thing for Dean”. Not a single one of those villains, comes even remotely close to the delicious menace of Meg, or Yellow Eyes, or Lilith or Alistair. Devoid of the skills, or the inclination, to give us an original, powerful antagonists, the season 11 writing team resurrects Lucifer, and rehashes season 5 for us. I’m not inclined to be grateful. If they were going to bring an old villain back, they could at least have given us Alistair or Meg. Certainly, we need another female character now that they’ve killed off Rowena. I was no fan of the Pantomime Witch, but again her death served no purpose other than to show how awful the Devil was (we know, he’s the Devil, we saw him a lot in season 5, remember?), and has successfully reduced female representation on Supernatural to a bit-part reaper, and the cameos of Sheriff Mills and Donna.

Of course, Lucifer wasn’t the only angel to suffer at the hands of the writer’s lack of inspiration. There was Castiel, too. Castiel. What on Earth, is the fucking point? If Castiel is so boring, so irrelevant, that the only way you can make him interesting, is by making him into Lucifer, then you have to start wondering whether it’s worth keeping him. Does he contribute anything, anything at all, to the story, now? Because, it seems that the only time Castiel is relevant, is when he’s not Castiel. Is that meant to be irony? Perhaps his motivation is meant to be ironic; after all he’s making the exact same mistake he made in season 6. More redux from the inspired creative team at Supernatural. It would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating.

What wasn’t funny was the pre-credit sequence I mentioned earlier. Other than a brief piece of exposition, that could have been disposed of in a line, this added nothing. All I got from it was an excruciating feeling of second hand embarrassment, and an inclination of how the rest of the episode was going to go.

In summary, then, and speaking plainly, the episode was awful. I hesitate to describe it as contrived garbage, because I seem to use that phrase often in relation to this show, and I don’t want to be guilty of a lack of imagination. But contrived it was, and I think that’s Supernatural’s enduring and apparently insurmountable problem. It absolutely is a flaw in the writing, but more specifically a flaw in how the writing is approached. Episodes of Supernatural are no longer flowing, organic pieces of storytelling. They’re Lego Kit writing: a preconceived piece of shallow spectacle, built from little perfectly formed bricks of wow. The ambition here is not to tell a story; it’s to amaze, it’s to impress with the next piece of Dramatic Dialogue, to scintillate with the next piece of awesome SFX; to show how cool-awesome the next Big Bad is. The same gaudy pieces stuck together repeatedly, following a check-list, and packaged to impress us with its style.

The problem is, there is no story beyond the formula it’s built from. The Emperor really does have no clothes.

Carver is the worst thing that has happened to Supernatural. So where are the complaints? Why has he lasted longer than Sera Gamble? Sera wasn't perfect, but she had a better understanding of the boys than Jeremy. Carver seems passive-aggressive to me. Like he wants to destroy the show. Bury it, and move on.

I think it’s a crying shame that Supernatural has been driven into the ground by a show runner who probably hasn’t had an original idea in his entire life.

Carver is absolutely TERRIBLE at what he does.

He’s a complete wank who thinks that canon is something you use to lob heavy ordinance at the enemy.

I wish he’d go play somewhere else but I suspect he’s still around for the same reasons the extra is, no one else will hire him.

Far be it from me to defend Creation (whose business practices I find dubious at best), and I stopped watching SPN after s11, but I had to comment on this on Twitter. The tweet doesn’t mention any fandom or any specific episode that led to the decision, yet people were jumping to conclusions like crazy. One insightful poster suggested that it might actually be about ‘Stranger Things’ (a show and fandom I know nothing about, but which apparently has an underage fandom), but it was drowned out by the loud, entitled SPN crowd.

Last night, Creation tweeted this: 

You notice what’s not on there? No mention of which fandoms, which cons, nothing. But hellers immediately lost their shit:

Big surprise, huh? Funny how they instantly knew it applied to them. Of course, the biggest fallacy in these tweets is that Jensen was fine with it, he was laughing, he loved it. That’s not how the girl who had it signed described it. She said the volunteer encouraged her to ambush him with it and when she did, he looked grumpy and uncomfortable. Maybe because she just shoved porn in his face? But no. They’re convinced that was just an act on his part, that he would have refused if he didn’t like it. Except that by the time that volunteer let him be ambushed, this option was gone. If he had refused, he’d be labelled a homophobe by them. AGAIN. 

The thing that makes me the sickest are the ones who keep saying “he looked uncomfortable but he really liked it. He wouldn’t have laughed if he didn’t like it.” Do they realize they’re using sexual predator language? “He was asking for it! Sure he looked uncomfortable but he smiled so clearly he wanted it.” Gross. 

And then (OF COURSE) we have the bunch who think none of the rules ever apply to them. They’re the ones who are going to really ruin it for everyone because they have every intention of doing it again. 

Here’s hilarious irony for you: 

Nope. Wrong. Blame the ones who decided it was a good idea to have them sign BDSM porn over their own genitals. Because I’ll tell you right now- lots of fans complain to Creation about stuff and they rarely (if ever) listen. The only people Creation actually care about is the talent. So as much as I love that these drama queens are giving us credit, it’s a lot more likely that Jensen said something after the last con. 

And hey, here’s a helpful guideline: If you have to bring a backup thing to get autographed because you think what you want signed is inappropriate? IT’S INAPPROPRIATE. Don’t bring it and put that on the actors. Have some damn sense and we wouldn’t have this problem. 

(and bonus points to the girl who feels PERSONALLY VICTIMIZED BY WINCESTERS AND NONSHIPPERS WHO DON’T LIKE HER SHIP lol)

Following Roger’s comments about ‘Match for Africa 6’ at his Wimbledon 3rd round press conference, a friend on Twitter requested this...I would say this is out of context but who knows with these two

Bye bye Carver, and bye bye show. Singer was the one who brought Castiel back in the first place. Under his direction Misha will be made a lead, and the Gruesome Twosome (Buckner/Ross-Leming) will be made head writers.

Supernatural Names New Showrunners as Jeremy Carver Moves to Frequency

Supernatural will be heading into Season 12 with new leadership. TVLine has learned that showrunner Jeremy Carver will step down at the conclusion of the current 11th season to focus on his new CW …

HOLY SHIT. 

RIP Omar Sharif (1932-2015) - The Egyptian star of classic epics Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965) died today at age 83. His film debut was in Devil of the Sahara (1954) and from there it took 21 more movies until he rose to fame as Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia, role that earned his first Golden Globe and his only Oscar nomination. The 2nd Globe came for the title role in Doctor Zhivago, and by that time he was already established a movie star appearing with Anthony Quinn and Gregory Peck in Behold a Pale Horse (1964), with Sophia Loren and Stephen Boyd in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Ingrid Bergman and Shirley MacLaine in The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965). Later on, he starred in Genghis Khan (1966), The Night of the Generals (1967), Funny Girl (1968), Mackenna’s Gold (1969), Juggernaut (1974), The Tamarind Seed (1974),  Funny Lady (1975), Bloodline (1979), Inchon (1981), Green Ice (1981), Top Secret (1984), Beyond Justice (1992), 13th Warrior (1999), Monsieur Ibrahim (2003) - winning a Cesar for his performance, Hidalgo (2004) and most recently Rock the Casbah (2013). He was also an accomplished World-class bridge player, and of that he said “I’d rather be playing bridge than making a bad movie.”. 

#Roger Federer #Rafael Nadal #Fedal #Legends

From 2008 to 2019 - how fortunate we are that we’re living in the same era as these two.

God, I’m getting flashbacks to the discussions about John’s stag party in the BBC Sherlock fandom.

Not saying a word

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