Review | 8x19 | Taxi Driver

[galathea_snb]

I know I am terribly late with this review, but better late than never, right? I admit, I deliberately postponed this review time and again, mainly because I knew right away that thinking about Taxi Driver would be way worse than just watching it. I will concede that the premise of the episode is fraught with potential, but the mediocre writing of

Comments

[maenad]

The thing is, all these issues could have easily been avoided if the demon tablet or the Batcave had provided Sam and Dean with a way to enter hell.

I find this bit of lazy scriptwriting unforgivable. Some problems may not have been the writers' fault. If they were forced to include numerous subplots then that fault lies with Carver or the writing team generally. But sticking the instructions on the tablet (I prefer the Bat Cave idea, but the search for answers would have been yet another subplot to deal with) would not only have resolved an ugly plot hole, it would have allowed them to cut the summoning/interrogation scenes, thus freeing up several minutes that could have been far better used.

I cannot fathom why, when dealing with such a massive, complex storyline, a writer would choose to weigh it down with unnecessary nonsense.

He takes care of Kevin, gives out friendly advice and seems more bummed out about losing his pie than about (potentially) losing his brother.That was one of the strangest scenes in the whole piece. Until

[galathea_snb]

I cannot fathom why, when dealing with such a massive, complex storyline, a writer would choose to weigh it down with unnecessary nonsense.
Ha, me neither. It baffles me really because the demon tablet/batcave are by far the more obvious choice than rogue reapers. It's like the writers went out of their way to make the story extra illogical and non-canon compliant.

The oddest thing about it is that it changes gears immediately after by having Dean panic when Naomi mentions that Sam went through purgatory. I don't understand that either.
Yeah, I think this goes hand in hand with the fact that Ross-Leming/Buckner made no effort whatsoever throughout the whole script to refer to any pre-S8 events. It's like the Winchesters' past history with hell has been erased completely. So of course Dean is nervous about purgatory, because that is part of the limited canon these writers tap into, everything beyond that is one black hole. /sigh

I have trouble believing that Crowley would send Bobby to hell 'just because'.Tell me about it. Crowley's

[de_nugis]

Yeah. I don't even have the heart to comment in any fuller way. 7.17 was a mess, and some eps of s7 were meh, but this episode was just so actively destructive, and retroactively destructive, riding over facts and draining significance from huge parts of canon. I liked this week's episode just fine, but I seem to have entered a stage where they may give us good things from time to time, but it doesn't mean anything.

Ross-Leming is married to Singer. That, I think, is why a catastrophically bad writing team has been given four episodes, one a major mytharc episode, this season.

[galathea_snb]

Yeah, I hear you. I mean, I loved Pac-Man Fever, I really did, but it's difficult to truly appreciate an episode nowadays, knowing that in the next episode all the character work will probably be forgotten or even negated. Without any form of continuity, the narrative becomes random and that prevents emotional investment. In the past seasons it was easy to forgive the occasional bad episode, because the seasons as a whole held together well. Now it is difficult to appreciate the occasional good episode, because the season as a whole holds little meaning.

I know that Ross-Leming is Bob Singer's wife, but I always thought that Singer has enough integrity to put the story first. Apparently I am too naive, though. :(