Supernatural: what went wrong?
abrakadabrah pointed me to an interesting commentary on the fifth season of Supernatural by karenmiller.
I'm still mulling it over.
I had thought the feasons for the change in the show, and the loss of quality, were (1) they lost Kim Manners, and (2) Eric Kripke lost interest in the story and consequently lost his sense of direction - in both senses of the word. He's already proved that he can tell a strong story, but suddenly stopped doing so. karenmiller thinks they lost faith in their own story, which is perhaps a different way of saying the same thing. Faith in our own creativity gives us direction. Lack of faith gives us George R.R. Martin. Stories that ramble, unravel.
At first, I thought it was a cool idea, to hold an Apocalypse and no one notices. That would have worked... If we'd had more coherency of storyline and character. I was riveted by season four. I was committed. Season Five is just too random, and I've gone from something close to fannish obsession, to paying almost no attention and not much caring any more. Breaks of many weeks between episodes don't help.
And meeting Lucifer was a real letdown.
Now, for me, Castiel was the biggest draw, at least, before I fell in love with Dean Winchester. But the dangerous, conflicted angel of season four seems to have turned into comic relief. Disappoints me more than all the rest, maybe. And Dean is no longer the Dean of season four.
Can the show reclaim my interest? I hope so, but I'm afraid to hope too much.
After all, I remember what happened to X-Files.