in which I am grumpy about SPN

[snick_backup]

I've been saying it since the season began, and I'll say it again: this season seems to lack a certain basic competence at the writing level. I notice this in dialogue especially, the obviousness of how conflicts between characters are set up and themes signposted, the pacing.

Episodes I've cringed particularly at:
* 8.03 Heartache: was just bad and boring and obvious in all the ways
* 8.05 Blood Brother: the best dialogue we've had all season, thank you Ben Edlund, but dully paced and centered around a character the audience has no particular reason to be invested in. (YMMV on this one; I know Benny has some fans.)
* 8.06 Southern Comfort: the one where every argument feels stilted and awful.
* 8.07 A Little Slice of Kevin: I actually liked this one a lot, but this is one where even this cast, talented though they are and love them though I do, couldn't always sell me on their lines. "Cas, you're not strong enough"? "You can't save everyone, Dean. You try"? :P
* 8.09 Citizen Fang: so much running around! to so little purpose! so scattered.
* 8.10 Torn and Frayed: the actions in this make sense, but man the lines were bad. Like, what happened with Sam and Amelia made emotional sense to me, but both the before scene and the after scene were so awkward because I couldn't tell where either of them was coming from. I can fanwank what was going on, but I can't discern their feelings from the episode.

And all that's not even going into how badly the season has worked in the Sam/Amelia flashbacks. Their relationship has been one of my favorite things all season, but there is not excuse for the rosy filters on all the scenes and the really awful flashback transitions.

Maybe it's all in my head? IDK. I've frequently had problems with the way this show handles, say, long-term character arcs, but I've never had this problem with getting hung up on the quality of individual episodes before.

Original entry posted at Dreamwidth. Feel free to reply here or there. ( DW replies)

Comments

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

I've actually stopped watching. This is partially as I got rid of cable and thus my DVR, but I was frustrated before. I may or may not get around to catching up. On the fence here!

However I did just pull out my B5 DVDs due (largely) to you. Big plan for my evening!

[snickfic]

I can't say this season is my favorite. As with last season, there was some promising stuff up front, but I feel like it's all fizzled now. :{

[grasshopr-molly.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure I view anything after the end of S7 as canon. (Honestly I'm not sure I view anything after "Swan Song" as canon, but S6 had enough good bits that I'm reluctant to chuck it entirely.)

[snickfic]

I have that same flexible definition of canon for BtVS. I'm not sure I'm willing to go quite that far yet for SPN, but man, this has not been encouraging lately.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Yes ITA, although I'm going out on a limb in my journal and suggesting that the crappy dialogue is actually an homage to soap operas. Perhaps I'm crazy, though!

I actually have toyed more than once with the idea of rewriting at least the season opener with different dialogue and seeing if I could improve it substantially (and I'm no writer!).

[snickfic]

Except making an homage to soap operas is a bad idea, regardless of execution.

It would not be difficult to improve large parts of the season opener. I mean, I adored the first scene, and Kevin got some good bits, but there's a lot I'd be willing to see improved.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

I think almost any idea COULD be executed well, but this certainly hasn't been.

I actually think that despite the horrible dialogue, they've done a good job with the Benny/Dean. I believed they were really comrades and I gave a bit of a crap about Benny's fate, etc. If they'd pulled off a similar coup with Amelia/Sam and made it clear that Sam either did search or spent half a year in the loony bin, etc, then I'd be all over this season, soap operas as inspiration or no.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

And made Dean less functional/more feral of course, heh.

[snickfic]

Heh, whereas I am soundly bored with Benny/Dean. I just don't care. And I adored what we saw of the Sam/Amelia relationship, I just wish that the way it had been framed were less horribly awkward, and also that it hadn't ended on such a sour note. (Up until this last ep, I thought that at least the line writing for Sam/Amelia was fairly decent.)

[cordelia-gray.livejournal.com]

I kind of agree, sadly. Partly they don't seem to have a lot of senior writers left on the show, and I think combining that with a new showrunner and the lack of a writer's room, it's feeling very spotty. I think the Sam/Amelia stuff would have been WAY more effective if it had been more verite, somehow. And I don't think any of the writers have a lot of experience with romantic scenes, and it shows.

I feel like there have been a lot of either odd or very boring choices, too. The escape from Purgatory was really anticlimatic, for instance.

[snickfic]

Yeah. I just rewatched 8.10 today, and gah, basically every single line in the Sam/Amelia scenes was cringe-worthy. And I've loved Sam/Amelia until now! There was just badness, all along the line.

I feel like there have been a lot of either odd or very boring choices, too.

Yeah. It's not like the basic stories they're wanting to tell couldn't be told well. It's that the execution has been terrible, and in ways that this show has not been terrible before.

[counteragent.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's not like the basic stories they're wanting to tell couldn't be told well. It's that the execution has been terrible, and in ways that this show has not been terrible before.

You speak truth.