11.01.07

Supernatural Season 3

Posted in Supernatural at 5:36 pm by Athena

I have a bone to pick about the 3^rd season of Supernatural.  From what I gather about the fan base this year there is a lot of righteous indignation about the two new women on the show.

With good cause, I believe.

I was certain that Supernatural wouldn’t get picked up for a season 3, actually.  I was so astonished that they didn’t get dropped after season 2 that I began to doubt myself and my grasp of the storyteller in me.

After reading the message boards and fan sites today I now understand that the show nearly didn’t make it back, “an 11^th hour” decision was made to let it stay on the air. Which sort of confirmed, “yay, I’m not crazy” they were really making bad calls. My primary concern last year was the story arc for the ‘yellow-eyed demon’, and Sam’s repetitive Save-me-Dean weakness.

They luckily wrapped up that story problem and shifted the focus and this years writing is smarter and edgier than last year.  I’m so pleased with the new directions that I’m all twitterpated over the show again – with only one major compliant.

As I looked around today it also seems to be the leading complaint of most of the shows real fans.

The new women.

Two new female leads that are not believable in the least. I read a lot of women who bitched about the “bimbos” and the “too-skinny” and “boob jobs”. Whatever. Most of the whining was done in respect to the rumors that the show is stooping to sex to draw a tighter audience such as Smallville and other WB shows, evidently in an effort to not get cancelled.

Mr. Kripke, here is my opinion about why your show nearly got 86ed, and why if you don’t make a really quick change – You won’t make it to season 4.

Season 2 nearly didn’t make it to season 3 because the quality of the writing from season one to season 2 dropped by half.  Momentum was lost and tension ebbed and the quality of the danger was diminished so much that season 2 should have been cancelled. There are three reasons it wasn’t.

Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki and a fan base that prayed the writing would get back on truly unholy ground.

With the first 4 episodes of season three, already the writing is better, the tension stronger and the two main characters infinitely more complex. YAY! Congratulations!

There is only one major flaw in the new year. The new women. It’s the “Hollywood ingénue” factor.  I think most viewers wouldn’t mind seeing the boys have love interests if they fit the pattern of the show better.

For example, the reason that most of the women thus far have failed is because Sam and Dean are working class, rough around the edges guys with a boat load of secrets. 

This doesn’t work well with petite women, with blinding white teeth and bleach blond hair. It just doesn’t.  I’m sorry Mr. Kripke, Ulrich and Dawson are just not casting well for you. I, as a viewer and a woman, cannot suspend my disbelief long enough to imagine that these frail ladies could kick the ass of a 5^th grader much less a demon or a 6’5” hunter of the strength of Sam Winchester.

To make a believable love interest with the same uber charged sexual electricity as the boys and have it be received well, you need women who are BELIEVABLY strong and capable hunters. I don’t believe for a minute that Jo, Bela or Ruby (especially) or any of the others thus far could hold their own in a fight or even in presence while on screen with the Winchesters.

Get some chicks with muscle, or cunning or good old fashioned scrappy attitudes in there. Get some women with tattoos or piercings or some nasty biker boots and a set of brass knuckles. Give us girls that don’t fit the mold, who stick out in a crowd not because they are tall and buxom, but because they are charismatic. Give us a girl who is emasculating and wry and witty with a grasp for Jedi mind-tricks and a killer left-hook.

We as fans are not above having the show sexed up, but we are above having the show sexed up with weak characters and “girl next door” Hollywood types who are trying too hard to be bad-ass and just come off looking cheesy.

The reason this show was a success to begin with was that it wasn’t “Hollywood”.  Give us some sex – for sure – but please leave the orange tans and denture-like smiles out.  Please stop trying to make us relate to “vanilla women”.  We loved the show because we are non-vanilla people and it’s a non-vanilla show.  We want real women for our real men. We want them to be as complex and challenging and dynamic.

I believe heightening the sexuality of the show is not a bad idea. But I write erotica. And there is nothing sexual or erotic about the female characters thus far – at all.

We want drama. We want action and suspense and tension.

The writing this season is so much better – now jog the casting and get yourself a contract for the next four years.

Uhm, there’s my two cents. So, yeah. Cheers.

Permalink