SPN: Hooked and Bugs
Mar. 6th, 2011 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backup* I'm continually confused by the fact that this show has no opening credit sequence. I wait for it, and it never comes.
* Are Sam and Dean Winchester the manliest manly names you have ever heard, or what? Dude, they're named after a rifle.
* It makes sense that, if you were going to spend as much time in your car as Dean Winchester does in his, you'd have one you liked really, really well. OTOH, if you were going to spend that much time in your car, seems like you might want a more fuel-efficient one.
* Sam and Dean are - or at least appear very convincingly to be - marvelously well socialized and socially adapted, considering they apparently spent their entire childhoods on the road killing monsters. Realistically, I'd expect more awkwardness and much less cool factor. Although, they must have gone to school at some point, right? Otherwise Sam wouldn't have been able to get that full ride scholarship.
* When it comes right down to it, I'm a lot more interested in monsters than spirits. It's too easy for the writers to wave their hands and make "spirits" do whatever the writers want them to do with only the barest minimum of justification. And yet all such spirits are disappointingly similar.
Hooked
As portrayals of people of faith go, this was not quite as cringe-worthy as it could have been. The daughter, at least, got to be almost a two-dimensional character, although of course I roll my eyes at the adulterous pastor cliche. Honestly, a religious person who is neither hypocritical nor "All sinners must die"? Is it really so hard? Still, nowhere near as bad as, say, the old lady in "Where the Wild Things Are," nor the random cult people in "True Believer" (Dollhouse).
I see the daughter sitting in the back of the ambulance all bundled up, and all I can think of is Sherlock to Lestrade: "I'm in shock! Look, I have a blanket!"
I love how everyone in this show has functioning casement windows. Just like 1620 Revello has, in fact.
I'm confused. How will it solve any problems to melt down the silver from the hook again? Clearly melting it the first time didn't. Also, point of interest: per Wikipedia, the melting point of pure silver is 1763 degree Fahrenheit. This rather contradicts Dean being able to heat Lori's chain in the church furnace - with the door open, no less. Ditto werewolf hunter dude from Phases (BtVS), who casts silver bullets by melting the silver over a Bunsen burner.
Bugs
Plotwise? Lame. The end of this episode defies all logic. The brothers Winchester are too late warning the family and getting them out of the neighborhood, so instead they all end up huddled in a holey attic (with flaming bug spray? what?) as bugs swarm in, because the attic is totally the most bugproof place in the house. Then the gigantic multi-species swarm somehow fails to kill them in the six hours or so between midnight and sunrise when the other victims lasted less than five minutes apiece. Our heroes and the family should all be dead now.
Otherwise, the episode hinted at chewy family stuff. Lots of Dean declaring that family's more important than anything else, lots of Sam recounting less than rosy childhood memories of said family. I'm glad this show recognizes that the lifestyle and backstory of its lead characters is actually pretty messed up. However, in dramatic terms it cuts a lot of the interesting tension to have Sam airing his issues about his dad to a third party - Dean - rather than to the dad. All the bits directly addressing the Sam-dad relationship fall pretty flat, not helped by the fact that the Dean-dad relationship is clearly more interesting and possibly a lot more psychologically damaged
* Are Sam and Dean Winchester the manliest manly names you have ever heard, or what? Dude, they're named after a rifle.
* It makes sense that, if you were going to spend as much time in your car as Dean Winchester does in his, you'd have one you liked really, really well. OTOH, if you were going to spend that much time in your car, seems like you might want a more fuel-efficient one.
* Sam and Dean are - or at least appear very convincingly to be - marvelously well socialized and socially adapted, considering they apparently spent their entire childhoods on the road killing monsters. Realistically, I'd expect more awkwardness and much less cool factor. Although, they must have gone to school at some point, right? Otherwise Sam wouldn't have been able to get that full ride scholarship.
* When it comes right down to it, I'm a lot more interested in monsters than spirits. It's too easy for the writers to wave their hands and make "spirits" do whatever the writers want them to do with only the barest minimum of justification. And yet all such spirits are disappointingly similar.
Hooked
As portrayals of people of faith go, this was not quite as cringe-worthy as it could have been. The daughter, at least, got to be almost a two-dimensional character, although of course I roll my eyes at the adulterous pastor cliche. Honestly, a religious person who is neither hypocritical nor "All sinners must die"? Is it really so hard? Still, nowhere near as bad as, say, the old lady in "Where the Wild Things Are," nor the random cult people in "True Believer" (Dollhouse).
I see the daughter sitting in the back of the ambulance all bundled up, and all I can think of is Sherlock to Lestrade: "I'm in shock! Look, I have a blanket!"
I love how everyone in this show has functioning casement windows. Just like 1620 Revello has, in fact.
I'm confused. How will it solve any problems to melt down the silver from the hook again? Clearly melting it the first time didn't. Also, point of interest: per Wikipedia, the melting point of pure silver is 1763 degree Fahrenheit. This rather contradicts Dean being able to heat Lori's chain in the church furnace - with the door open, no less. Ditto werewolf hunter dude from Phases (BtVS), who casts silver bullets by melting the silver over a Bunsen burner.
Bugs
Plotwise? Lame. The end of this episode defies all logic. The brothers Winchester are too late warning the family and getting them out of the neighborhood, so instead they all end up huddled in a holey attic (with flaming bug spray? what?) as bugs swarm in, because the attic is totally the most bugproof place in the house. Then the gigantic multi-species swarm somehow fails to kill them in the six hours or so between midnight and sunrise when the other victims lasted less than five minutes apiece. Our heroes and the family should all be dead now.
Otherwise, the episode hinted at chewy family stuff. Lots of Dean declaring that family's more important than anything else, lots of Sam recounting less than rosy childhood memories of said family. I'm glad this show recognizes that the lifestyle and backstory of its lead characters is actually pretty messed up. However, in dramatic terms it cuts a lot of the interesting tension to have Sam airing his issues about his dad to a third party - Dean - rather than to the dad. All the bits directly addressing the Sam-dad relationship fall pretty flat, not helped by the fact that the Dean-dad relationship is clearly more interesting and possibly a lot more psychologically damaged
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 01:11 am (UTC)It would just be sort of sad if the show was canceled while I was still watching old episodes. Even though, frankly, I find closed canons much more comfortable than open ones.