Lawdy, Lawdy ...
After a season filled with one great episode, two half-way decent episodes (if I'm being generous), and 9 craptastic mockeries of what once was, we now have ... two great episodes. THANK you, Supernatural. For reminding me why I'm still willing to hang on by my fingernails long after I should have just turned off the lights and gone home.
Because ( Read more... )
Exactly. There is a spirit to shows that own you, and even when all the surface details seem the same to others, if the underlying spirit of the show dies, those who love it for its spirit can't abide the sight of it any longer. Or at least I can't.
The same thing happened for me with NYPD Blue, Buffy, Angel and West Wing.
Without ever being told of the change, I could tell the MOMENT the driving force behind the show left. The one who gave it it's spirit. With Buffy and Angel, they also experienced a dramatic dive in quality of writing, and that played into it for me. But with NYPD and WW? The sad thing was that the dialog and plotting and characterization, in their surface details, all remained a very high quality.
But the spirit that made the show BREATHE? Vanished the moment David Milch (NYPD) and Aaron Sorkin (WW) left. Without them behind the wheel (even when they, themselves, were not writing each episode), the show could be technically good like a computer playing a piano. But it could not be emotionally profound the way a true artist playing the piano is.
And I feel that is relevant to aspects of SPN, too. SPN, like Angel and Buffy, has suffered dramatic dives in writing quality at various times that render the show sucky period. But even when the writing itself is quality and the acting is good, when the spirit of the show does not live there, SPN cannot work for me.
The only difference I see in SPN from the other examples I cited is that I'm not entirely sure who the spirit of SPN is. I suspect, based on the timing of when the show just suddenly LOST itself, that it was Kim Manners. Which would certainly make sense. And I am certain that the spirit of John Winchester as I love him is Jeff.
But even noting the above, I sense a more communal spirit feel to SPN than ever existed in NYPD or WW ... one that makes me think there are still writers on the show that can give Jensen, Jared and Jim the material they need to collectively revive the spirit of the show in ways that can survive Kim's absence intact, albeit inarguably poorer for his loss on more levels than simply the show's quality.
And this is the only explanation that works for me how, being able to cite chapter and verse on why Deadwood and SPN have never been playing in even the same country of quality, let alone the same city; I still once loved SPN in as profound a way as I have only ever loved Deadwood before.
And I think that's because, in addition to David's spirit on DW, he also had the exact right mix of writers and actors to transcend even what he accomplished with NYPD. And Jensen and Jim and Jeff are all the right cast for SPN to do that, too, with Jared and Misha being the right catalysts to personal chemistries to make it sing above and beyond anything pure acting skill can otherwise capture.
So when the writing is there to support that unique alchemy of chemistry and talent from the cast? The show can at least begin to touch the face of God Deadwood defined, even when you can drive trucks through the plot holes and can't make anything but hash from the shreds of what they call a show mythos ... a failure Deadwood never suffered even to the smallest of degrees.
All of which is to try and articulate how it isn't the "Sam gone evil" storyline that has put me where I've been this last year and a half with the show. Nor is it the loss of John, or any other plot or character choice.
Rather, it is the on-again/off-again relationship they have with their own spirit.
When it is on? I am with the show 1000%, even when I feel a need to nitpick about things they should be doing and aren't or shouldn't be doing and are. But when it is off? I resent the show in ways that are amplified by how much I have lost rather than how good or bad it technically is.
Does that make sense? Hopefully it does.
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Now, I'm looking forward to more SPN reviews from you in the future. Always appreciate your take on it.
And oh yeah, thanks for continuing with Skin! :)
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