Tuesdays are Supernatural!

[John Crichton]

I'd bet money that no more than 1 out of 10 people watching this show even know what a Wendigo is.

I agree, but it's more like 1 out of 10,000.

 

[Wayside]

I do find it amusing though that in and episode titled Wendigo, someone wanted there to be something else.

Hey man, unless they actually put the title on screen while the episode aired, there's not much chance of me seeing it. Which is good for them, actually, because I might've just skipped last week's ep and returned for this week's if I'd known what was coming.

OK, so let me get this straight. You find the Wendigo legend, which has maybe been done in two or three media presentations to date, to be 'old hat', and cannibalism is campy and cheesy instead of horrifying and grotesque? I'd bet money that no more than 1 out of 10 people watching this show even know what a Wendigo is. To them, it's not old hat. It's totally brand new to them, just like the other things the brothers mentioned.

The effects of cannibalism in the Wendigo myth are campy and a tad overdone, sure, the former being a function of the latter. That's part of the comedic genius of Ravenous. Wikipedia points to a few more than maybe two or three media presentations, and Wikipedia is far from exhaustive. If we weren't already getting hit with staples of the genre in the second episode I'd be singing a different tune, but it seems a little early to me to be getting this generic stuff. As far as horrifying and grotesque go, if you find anything about Supernatural so far horrifying or grotesque, that's great for you, but it takes a little more than a really bad costume and makeup job or a lady in white clothes to get to me. Some better direction would be nice, for starters. Horror's all about how you frame things. Otherwise, Shaun of the Dead would be horrifying and grotesque too, right? Because there's flesh eating there, so it must be creepy. I did appreciate how they kept the Wendigo visually in the peripheral for most of the episode, but then later you get a good shot of it and it's really pretty silly looking.

Now, we've only seen two episodes so far, and Supernatural has plenty of room to grow. I doubt there's any show I couldn't say the same thing about based on its first few episodes. But yeah, ep 2 was a big disappointment from where I sat.

 

[WayneLigon]

Wikipedia points to a few more than maybe two or three media presentations, and Wikipedia is far from exhaustive.

I count one media presentation that actually features a wendigo; the Charmed episode. The rest are offhand mentions, an obscure story and even more obscure poem, and then fan speculation. More people probably know about the creature from the Marvel version than anoy of the other sources mentioned.

 

[Wayside]

Or from the World of Darkness, or from Warcraft, or from any number of other sources that have coopted the word and reimagined the story in some form or other. And there are a lot of them because, like vampires and werewolves and zombies--just one tier down--the basic concept is fairly well known, and leaves a lot of room for writers to customize to their liking. I'm elated they didn't use a werewolf, but the by-the-book Wendigo bored me nonetheless, for the reasons I've stated as well as a few others, like handwaving the backstory. If just eating someone turns you into a wendigo, there'd be a whole lot more of them, they wouldn't be regionally isolated like the show claimed, etc.

If you only see one example of a media presentation in that article I think what you mean by media isn't what media means.

 

[Desdichado]

I don't care if a concept is old hat or not. X-files had tons of episodes with old hat concepts--werewolves, vampires, voodoo, etc. It's all in the presentation, not the concept itself.

And I thought the episode was mostly well done. I also thought, that by the time you actually saw the wendigo, it was kinda silly looking, but that ended up only being a minor nitpick on an otherwise entertaining episode for me.

The other nitpick, probably less minor in the grand scheme of things, is that the episode ended without any clear direction of where the next episode is going to come from.

 

[John Crichton]

The other nitpick, probably less minor in the grand scheme of things, is that the episode ended without any clear direction of where the next episode is going to come from.

I had the same thought as the show came to a close. But I'll leave it on faith that we'll get some direction at the start of the new ep.

 

[Mad Hatter]

Wayside, from their explanation it wasn't just a one time feast of cannibalism. It was continual and probably got even more brutal and animalistic. A counter argument to my previous statement would probably be the ritualistic eating of human flesh performed by many primitive cultures;however, I submit that it is different because of the circumstances. One is due to extreme hunger and craving because of some sort of starvation circumstance, and the other is due to religious or tribal practices. Different circumstanes.

As for old hat, come on! As was mentioned the majority of people don't even know what a Wendigo is. And I firmly believe that this episode was more about the brothers than any monster so it better to watch it for the interactions than for the monster.

 

[Steverooo]

We'll see...

So far the two shows have been good, I'm only now watching the second one. I understand that people want more connection between the episodes but should you wait until that doesn't happen before complaining about it?

We'll see, in a few hours, whether or not I should have complained...

 

[Mercule]

The other nitpick, probably less minor in the grand scheme of things, is that the episode ended without any clear direction of where the next episode is going to come from.

Yup. If this turns into a "freak of the week" show, I won't be watching it. The backstory has potential, but if they don't follow that, it won't be pretty.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, I'm not liking it, so much... It's definitely a "Freak-of-the-Week" show, and that gets old, quickly... This will, too!

I didn't really expect them to find Dad, and/or get any info on the Anima Sola, this week, but I was surely hoping that it wouldn't become a Freak-of-the-Week Show, with Dad just being used as an occasional plot device!... YAWN!

It's formulaic, and old, already. I want something new...

It's not the formula, it's how it's used. It was great on Buffy, it's cartoonish on Smallville. So far, it's pretty good on Supernatural.