Reason #153 Why Supernatural Rocks

Last season there was an episode of Supernatural called "Skin", in which a shapeshifter kills a bunch of people, narrowly escapes police capture after one murder attempt, and is killed by the Winchester boys. The police are left to believe that the perpetrator of the murders is dead, which is true. The problem is that the shapeshiter looks exactly like dean when he is seen by the police and when he is eventually dispatched by our heroes. At the time I thought it was a great episode (evil or not, I am never going to argue with getting twice the Jensen Ackles), and thought it would be awesome if Dean's apparent death, as well as the belief that he was a murderer, had consequences later on. However, I did not expect there to be any consequences, and was not upset by that. Shows like Supernatural never go back to deal with these things. Even Joss Whedon shows let stuff like that slide on occassion, and Whedonverse shows have some of the best continuity in the history of television. Maybe Veronica Mars, a show where almost everything that happens has significance later, would bring this development up again, but there was little chance that would happen on Supernatural, a show that is basically about pretty boys with guns and demons.

Color me surprised when Dean's status as deceased murder suspect got name-checked later in the first season. I was even more surprised this season when everything from the petty crimes they commit on a regular basis to Dean's supposed murders (and the fact that he is not dead) got Sam and Dean arrested. This last episode, "Night Shifter", blew me away though. Not only was it typically good, but we learned that the brothers Winchester now have the feds on their tail, which makes complete sense, since not only are they wanted for all sorts of things like impersonating federal agents and murder, but they also have now escaped police custody and crossed state lines. Not only are the Feds after them, but they know all sorts of stuff about their family history, and think John Winchester was some sort of militant nut, which, and I probably don't even have to say this, also makes perfect sense.

You'll pardon me if I seem overly excited about all this, but I watch a lot of genre shows, and I watch a lot of shows on the CW, and logic so rarely enters into how the world reacts to the actions of the characters on the show. Take Smallville for example, a show where the good guys are regularly breaking into buildings, engaging in some mighty illegal hacking, blowing up buildings, and just generally using their superpowers in front of random people and no one ever notices and none of the characters ever get in trouble. That's why consequences is reason #153 why Supernatural rocks. If you are curious about the other 152 reasonse, I'll just tell you that they include such things as the Impala, the classic rock soundtrack, Robert Johnson, all the very cool pop culture references, and various details about Jensen Ackles and Jared Padelecki's overrall prettines.

Some Actual Praise for Smallville

This is my first Smallville related post of the 2006 - 2007 television season. After last season and my numerous posts regarding the show, one may have wondered what happened. Did the show stop sucking? Did Scout finally decide to stop punishing herself with television shows that literally cause her pain? Has Scout finally decided that if she can't say anything nice, she shouldn't say anything at all? The answer to all those questions is, not remotely. (Especially that last one. What would be the point of maintaining this blog if I thought that?) Quite simply, I stopped caring. Lois Lane decided to become a journalist because of a barn door? Fine. Green Arrow had some crazy thugs kidnap Lex Luthor? Sure. Lex wants to marry Lana even though she told him she still loved Clark? I wouldn't expect anything different from this show. Jimmy Olsen is having sex with Chloe and there's whip cream involved? OK, that one's still kind of gross. The point is, I've reached a Zen-like state when it comes to this show's levels of bad. But last week's episode was good, and that shocked me.

Justice was, first and foremost, a lot of fun. I can't remember the last time I felt like Smallville was actually a show about a superhero. I guess it's just too bad that all the superheroes were guest stars who aren't sticking around. I wasn't so sure about Green Arrow when he first started this season, but he's really grown on me. Justin Hartley is charismatic and pretty and talented and I look forward to seeing a lot more of him on my television in the future. Then there was Bart, aka Impulse, who is fantastic. I loved him when he first showed up in season four's Run, and I loved him even more this time. Kyle Gallner, the actor who portrays Bart, has made guest appearances on roughly half the shows I watch this season and he deserves all the work. My biggest fear about this episode was that whenever I saw Bart, who was so adorable the first time around, I would only be able to think about Beaver Casablancas and how he blew up a bus and raped Veronica Mars. Not only did he make me forget all about that other role, with all the flirting he threw Chloe's way, I wasn't worried her at all. Cyborg and Aquaman were back too, though their parts were smaller. It was nice to see that Cyborg was more like his comic book self this time around and less like the Bionic Man. Aquaman's lines were blessedly minimal and mostly served to bring the gay, which is always fun (and given his last appearance on the show, that is his greatest superpower). Not that the show's only gay moments came from the fishy one and his naked swimming. The Sparks were in full display between Clark and Oliver and Clark and Bart as well.

More important than all the homoerotic subtext (and that is always enjoyable), this episode was fun because it was fast paced, and while there were no fight scenes, plenty of stuff happened. There was a lot of running for one thing, and of course, there were arrows. There was also Lex acting like a badass. Being free of the horrid pink parasite (Lana was blessedly absent for the entire episode) had a wonderful effect on his inner bad guy. Michael Rosenbaum plays evil deliciously well. His readings on lines like "And I want a ponytail. Disappointment abounds," are impeccable, and he has the perfect villain's swagger. When Lex is like this, Rosenbaum is totally bringing the sexy back. His speech to Lionel about torturing meteor freaks for truth and democracy was everything I have always wanted from Smallville's version of the character. John Glover too deserves kudos for his small but memorable appearance in this episode. Lionel's impromptu alibi for Clark, about Martha's pot roast and new potatoes, was priceless. I have to say too, because I always adore her, that I loved Chloe in this episode and I thought she was worked in rather nicely without her importance diminishing any of the superheroes. She got to be all cool and sassy too.

The only parts of this episode I didn't enjoy were the Oliver and Lois scenes. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with them, per se. As a matter of fact, I found Lois infinitely more tolerable than I usually do (the storyline with Oliver Queen/Justin Hartley really brought out the best in the character and the actress). It's just that those scenes really dragged in what was otherwise a fast and fun episode. The melodrama didn't seem to fit. I also had a bit of trouble buying into all there talk of love and regret. The Oliver Queen of the comics is an infamous ladies man, complete with illegitimate children (which made the whole no sex thing more than a bit ridiculous for me), but mostly, too much of the relationship was developed off screen for me to care.

My overriding feeling when coming out of this episode though was to wonder why it couldn't be like this all the time. Why must I sit through all the soap opera melodrama when I could be watching daring rescues and things exploding? I completely geeked out watching this proto-Justice League doing their slow-mo hero walk away from the explosion. (OK, and I also got a little distracted by how pretty Tom Welling is.) I want to geek out like that all the time. Heroes is a great show, my current favorite, but it doesn't have any of the comic book characters I love and there's not a costume in sight. Are costumes heroes and villains too much to ask for? If I can't have a Justice television series, I would settle for a a Green Arrow or Impulse series.

I'm a Little Heartbroken

There were a few things I planned to post blog entries about in the next few days, but I read something today that had to be commented on immediately. It was reported in Variety today that NBC will be cancelling Passions and adding another hour of The Today Show to their daytime line up in the fall, like the world needed more of Meredith Viera. I don't watch Passions anymore, but I feel this loss deeply. When Fox announced that The O.C. was being cancelled, I was sad. I have a lot of fond memories of the show, but I did voluntarily stop watching that show. With Passions, I can honestly say that I would still be watching today if it wasn't for the horrible truth that I am now an adult and had to get a job. On the rare occasions when I am home on a weekday, I still tune in.

I began watching Passions after its several mentions on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Fans of Buffy may remember that it was Spike's favorite show. I naturally wondered what was so inherently funny about this show, and who this Timmy character was who was stuck in the well. I instantly fell in love. Created by James E. Reilly, the man who first brought demonic possession to daytime on Days of Our Lives (Marlena was possessed by a Succubus and it was awesome), Passions was the most cracktastic thing I had ever seen on television. All the traditional soap opera plotlines were carried out to the most extreme degree, and then topped off with witchcraft, incest, portals to hell, relationships that could destroy all the evil in the world if consummated, reincarnation, the dubious acting talents of Liza Huber, pacts with the devil, daytime television's first lesbian sex scene, a controversial Orangutan nurse with an active fantasy life named Precious, Bollywood musical numbers, and, really, so much more. Passions was a soap opera on acid, and it was fully aware of it's own ridiculousness. After the show ends in August, day time television may be a little more sane, but it will never be as fun again.

I end my tribute to Passions, with a tribute to what was by far the show's greatest contribution. While still great, Passions was never the same after the passing of Josh Ryan Evans, and the departure of the delightful living doll Timmy from all of our lives.

I raise a Mar-Timmy to you, Passions, in celebration of your insane and campy brilliance. Like the wonderful Timmy, you will be missed, and my sick days will be far less enjoyable.

I Can Destroy Planets

As you may or may not know, Dr. Doom is my greatest role model of supervillainy, but I can't really be disappointed with these results. I'm not going to go all Jean Grey and let my conscience get the better of me. I plan to revel in the Phoenix Force's power. Just try and stop me, you Shi'ar bastards!

Your results:
You are Dark Phoenix

Dark Phoenix 65% Magneto 59% Apocalypse 57% Mystique 49% Poison Ivy 47% Lex Luthor 47% Dr. Doom 45% The Joker 42% Venom 40% Juggernaut 37% Two-Face 37% Kingpin 33% Riddler 32% Catwoman 32% Green Goblin 29% Mr. Freeze 26%

A prime example of emotional extremes: Passion and fury incarnate.

Click here to take the "Which Super Villain are you?" quiz...

Catching Up

I'm a bit annoyed with myself that I went a whole month without posting a new entry, but I honestly didn't have anything to say in December. It was a slow month and my mind was on things besides pop culture. (I didn't know it was possible either.) I thought about doing a review of Spider-Man: Reign #1, but my thoughts on it pretty much began and ended with "It's okay, but I already read Dark Knight Returns" and "GAH! Old people sex!" Since then I've expanded those thoughts to include speculation that it would be revealed that Mary Jane was raped and murdered. It's what Frank Miller would do. I bet the Black Cat has become a prostitute too, because Frank Miller loves whores. For good measure, an elderly Peter Parker punches out J. Jonah Jameson, who, one would assume, is roughly 200-years old for undisclosed reasons. This, I assume, is because Frank Miller would want Spider-Man to be an asshole. Sadly, it's not All Star Spider-Man, so we won't be subjected to the comedic gold of lines like "I'm the goddam Spider-Man!"

Then I thought about doing an entry on Spider-Man 3, and some of the new information that's surfaced, including the article in a recent Premier magazine (an article in which a fourth movie was all but confirmed and Raimi said he couldn't imagine doing Spider-Man without Tobey Maguire, which is just funny considering how quick the guy was to put in a call to Jake Gyllenhaal last time that looked like a possibility), but I already posted about the first trailer (convenient link). At this point, I'm mostly just anxious to see the movie. May cannot get here soon enough. I'm ridiculously excited about it, but I'm also afraid it's going to suck. Sam Raimi pretty much rules my world (and would even if the only movie he ever made was Evil Dead II), but can he possibly do justice to so many characters?

There was also this announcement, which I didn't say anything about for your own good. Nobody likes an overly emotional blogger, and Spidey, MJ and dear old Aunt May's future in regular continuity comics tends to make me a bit on edge lately. I wonder why. I will say one thing about it though. It seems odd complaining about the artist on this project, since it's Joe Quesada, but part of me would really rather see John Romita, Jr. doing it. He's pretty much the definitive Spider-Man artist of my lifetime, and if "One Day More" is going to be the capper on the era of Spider-Man comic books I grew up with, I would have liked him to be a part of it. Also, just in case I get so upset I have to stop reading Spider-Man comics, I'd like to see him draw the web head one more time before I say good-bye.

There were only two non-Spider-Man related, and therefore potentially safe and emotion free, items that tempted me to blog during December. The first was the Donner Cut of Superman II, which I have mixed feelings about and I will probably do a review of soon. The other was the announcement of which writers would be joining Joss Whedon on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8 comic book, but how interesting would "Oh my GOD! Brian K Vaughn, Drew Goddard, Jane Espenson, and Doug Petrie! This is going to be so awesome!" be? Brain K. Vaughn is also joining the writing staff of Lost, thereby ensuring that I will be sticking around at least long enough to see an episode penned by him. Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in. That J.J. Abrams is mighty sneaky.

It's also worth noting that I read Occasional Superheroine's "Goodbye To Comics" in December, but that didn't so much inspire me to blog as much as it made me feel a little ill, very depressed, and kind of want to burn my copy of Identity Crisis.

Well, that was my December 2006. Hopefully 2007 will be awesome and there will be plenty of stuff to blog about, with this blog having a lot less bitterness and bitching and a lot more fun. I's unlikely though. I can always find something to bitch about. I do anticipate to be blogging more in the coming year. I already have several ideas, so hopefully I'll stop being so lazy. Happy 2007.