Tuesdays are Supernatural!

[takyris]

You know what else I hate? Those shows where somebody gets murdered every episode, and the good guys find out who did it. Come on, I hate those criminal-of-the-week shows.

(cough)

Formula isn't bad. Formula is formula. There are good formula shows and bad formula shows. If you don't like formula, can I assume that you also don't watch any of the CSI, Law & Order, or other procedurals, or read any of the popular fantasy on the bookshelves today, which is pretty much following the formulae established by the big guys? I'm not even going to mention mystery or romance novels, since I doubt this board has a preponderance of readers for that genre.

Supernatural is a freak-of-the-week show, just like Buffy and Smallville and X-Files and Charmed and Highlander (well, immortal of the week). Supernatural appears to have a recurring big-bad, just like the other shows had, but it's also going to spend some quality time monster-slaying. It's not trying to hide this fact. You certainly don't have to like it, but your stated reasons for disliking it seem to cut out a lot of the rest of the television world as well.

 

[WizarDru]

I like the show. I like it lots.

Wendigos are commonplace, now? News to me. I've seen the Wendigo ONCE in my lifetime outside of a reference in a fantasy novel - and that was in the X-men comic where wolverine tracked one down in the great white north. Things like references to Black Dogs (creatures almost certainly as obscure as Wendigos) and Anasazi markings are lots of fun, and show the writers have at least done a little digging into the material.

The show's formula is ideal for getting viewers invested in the series without feeling that they can't just jump in. There's plenty of time in the future for expanding the concepts, buliding a recurring cast and moving forward. Shows as diverse as M*A*S*H*, The Fugitive, Buffy:TVS, Star Trek, Combat, The Rifleman, The Hulk, Law and Order, Magnum P.I., WKRP in Cincinnatti and hundreds of others have used it or a variant of it. Because it works.

Steveroo's suggestions for how the show could be done actually sound less appealing to me, as they automatically exclude new viewers. how many people decided to avoid Lost until the start of the second season, when they could be brought up to speed? Jumping into Lost or E/R or Babylon 5 is made doubly hard on those who weren't there from the start. It's an equally valid format choice...but it has its own drawbacks.

 

[Wayside]

Wendigos are commonplace, now? News to me.

Looks like. I can't do anything about the amount of exposure other people have to this stuff. I can say that I've never been on any sort of gaming network, like Battle.net or MtGOnline, where a variety of spellings of the name weren't in use. I can also say that when I asked my class of 26 if they knew the story, a significant number replied in the affirmative; but my university also teaches Native American Literature and it's a very popular class. It could be that people my age and younger are more familiar with the stories than people who went through the education system a decade ago. Whatever the reason, everybody I know knows the story, as do half my acquaintances. That's just a fact.

Things like references to Black Dogs (creatures almost certainly as obscure as Wendigos) and Anasazi markings are lots of fun, and show the writers have at least done a little digging into the material.

I'd imagine Black Dogs are even less obscure than the Wendigo, but also less recognizable. A lot of people have read that bit of Sherlock Holmes, but they aren't going to immediately make the connection.

 

[Captain Tagon]

For my own part, I have VERY limited exposure to a Wendigo in stories. My first thought is to the X-Men character, which is completely different. The only other reference I can think of is a character in an online wrestling game.

As for Black Dogs, I have no clue at all what that one is.

 

[WayneLigon]

For my own part, I have VERY limited exposure to a Wendigo in stories. My first thought is to the X-Men character, which is completely different. The only other reference I can think of is a character in an online wrestling game.

As for Black Dogs, I have no clue at all what that one is.

Yeah, I'd suspect that most people might just know the name from someone mining 'cool' references without any knowledge of or understanding of the actual myths. Like, there is a creature in WoW called a 'wendigo' but it's just a name, nothing more.

Black Dogs are a fairly well known British phenomenon, which the Hound of the Baskervilles riffs on (it doesn't really count as a story about one, though, since it's just a regular dog). Big dogs, some as big as calfs. Sometimes they are death omens. Probably a remnant of myths about the Cwn Anwn of Welsh folklore.

Tonight's episode was pretty good. Nice ghost story Looks like next week might be more of a 'mythology' episode, as the girlfriend gets mentioned again.

 

[Captain Tagon]

Yeah, this episode was definately entertaining.

As an aside...Wayne, I'm loving the HERO Martial Artist book. So many ideas for characters and games already.

 

[WayneLigon]

Yeah, this episode was definately entertaining.

As an aside...Wayne, I'm loving the HERO Martial Artist book. So many ideas for characters and games already.

Oh, so you bought that? COol. You should take another look at Watchers of the Dragon when I relist it; it's a campaign book for martial artists.

 

[Steverooo]

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

And I was right; dead right...

Spoiler

Now I'm off to haunt the show's writers, producers, and directors!

 

[Desdichado]

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.

The last two episodes have been... well, episodic, but the "coming next week on Supernatural" preview of next week looks like it addresses "the Mythos" again. To borrow a term from X-files.

If this follows a more or less 50/50 "big story" vs. "episodic" format, I'm OK with that. It worked pretty well for X-files.

And long as the episodic ones are good. So far I've enjoyed them a lot.

 

[Desdichado]

As for Black Dogs, I have no clue at all what that one is.

Pretty much the same as the Grim referenced in Harry Potter. I'd hardly call that obscure, but it did use a variant name, at least.