Okaaaaaay ...

[dizzojay]

Well I settled down last night to watch the long-awaited 'backdoor pilot' and, well ...



The simple fact is that by the end of the Supernatural pilot, I would have sold my first-born son (assuming, of course, that I actually had one) to protect Sam and Dean.

Midway through ‘Bloodlines’ my thoughts were wandering so much that I became fixated about whether I’d left the empties out for the milkman to collect this morning – to the extent that I had to get up and go and check!

I’m a little bit at a loss to understand what demographic the producers were aiming for when they created this; surely they can’t think that this would appeal to the greater fandom?

I felt like I was watching some glitzy soap, with the shallow plastic characters you expect of such a format; Barbie and Ken meets Hammer House of Horror, and that is totally not what Supernatural is about.

Supernatural is gritty, it’s dark, it’s angsty, it’s dirty, it’s filled with sacrifice and despair and a love so profound it’s physically painful to experience and that’s what we adore. I accept that a spin-off, naturally, has to be different to the original, but this was different at such a fundamental level, I may as well have been watching Extreme Couponing for all the connection I felt it had with our show.

Supernatural has also been gifted with a succession of fabulously well-written characters. Characters with great backstory, with depth and substance, played by gifted actors who brought that substance very much to life, any one of which could have raised the bar immensely on such a bland showing.

But ultimately, I think any spin-off of Supernatural is facing an uphill struggle for one simple reason:

Jared and Jensen.

Jared and Jensen ARE Supernatural. Like apples to an apple pie; take out the apples and what you have left is a crust.

I was so determined to keep an open mind, but I have to concede that what I watched last night was a crust.

I wonder if the milkman’s taken the empties yet?

Comments

[just-ruth.livejournal.com]

Thank God, it's not just me. If they found cast with same chemistry as the 4Js it might work but I felt nothing

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Nope, it didn't do anything for me at all I'm afraid. :(

[heavenli24.livejournal.com]

Lol - my thoughts exactly.

I don't think I've seen a single positive review of this episode yet.

Even where the reviews said the pilot wasn't too bad on its own, I think pretty much everyone has said that this had no place being an episode of our show at all :(. If it was going to be masquerading as a SPN episode, then it needed to be done differently - we needed it to be from Sam and Dean's POV and we needed to care for the characters... ideally, those characters needed to be already established on the show.

I'm really hoping that it doesn't get picked up, because I think the writers need a reality check here. They've spent the last couple of years seemingly thinking that they can do no wrong (especially with the ratings as they are), when the truth is, the show just a shell of its former self right now and it's just getting worse and worse. The writers/producers need to know we aren't just going to love a spin-off just because it's related to SPN, it also has to have some substance to it and some emotional connection for us.

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

I tried to avoid the reviews before I watched it, but I was getting the idea that all was not as it should be judging by how quiet Tumblr was!

[auntmo9.livejournal.com]

I told amber1960 that despite how hard RL has been on me the last couple of years I've never fallen asleep during an episode of SPN....until this one. I think that's all anyone needs to know about how I feel about the back door pilot.

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

I was tempted to give up on it about three quarters of the way through.
I'm so sad about it :(

[septembers-coda.livejournal.com]

I felt the same, except more violently. I really hated the ep, and I tried REALLY hard to go in with an open mind, to say, "well, it won't be SPN, that's a given, but it could still be good!" It was NOT GOOD. In any way. Also, the acting was just LAUGHABLY terrible.

I plan to write my own rant about it, but right now I'm just sad that I found nothing to like at all. I mean, the dog sex episode was at least fun to mock. All the terrible eps of SPN have at least some beauty or a good line here and there... this was just pure pain. :-( I found myself relieved when the commercials came on; there was some part of me, watching the trailers for other awful CW shows, that was like "oooh, it's getting better, this isn't so bad!" :-}

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

It was the whole glitzy/glamour/Dynasty concept that turned me right off.
They'd obviously spent some serious cash on this episode - it makes me wonder how much had been held back from the real show to pay for it.

[vexed_wench]

I have yet to watch it. It's on the dvr waiting. I have seen nothing positive about so I am not in a big rush.

I really wish if we were getting a spin off that it had been Dorothy and Charlie in Oz. That would have been a lot of fun.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Dorothy and Charlie in Oz, or Kevin and Mama Tran, Garth and the werewolves, Jody and Alex... Or how about a spin off about Bobby, Ellen, Jo and Ash taking over Heaven or Limbo?

[vexed_wench]

I vote yes to all of the above. Garth and the werewolves I am still getting my head around.

That is because I have my own head canon where he winds up with Becky.

[just-ruth.livejournal.com]

Yes! Any one of those I could believe or the adventures of Sam Colt in the Old West.

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

That would have been cool!

[vexed_wench]

At least we will always have fan fic ;)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

heh heh you and just about everybody else I know. I watched it and felt cheated in the end because we lost a whole episode for that cross between the Dresden Files and Dallas.

[septembers-coda.livejournal.com]

IF ONLY it were more Dresden Files!! That would have made it MUCH better. But yeah, they did kind of crab some of Butcher's ideas. Just not the good ones.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Yep, I should have qualified that with what I said elsewhere - an inferior version of the Dresden Files and Dallas - without an original premise or any charisma.

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Not an episode I'll rush to watch again.

[metallidean-grl.livejournal.com]

I didn't mind the episode. It had its good points, and bad points. I question the timing of this episode and the introduction of the characters. I think it would have served this backdoor pilot a lot better had they introduced the characters slowly, making them integral in Dean and Sam's story somehow, and then offshooting them into the Bloodlines series. If they want the SPN fandom to want to be a part of this show, they need to make us want to care for these characters and show us some heart. As it stands, I liked the David character, but Ennis, I didn't care that much for the actor, I thought he was weak in the role, and the character.....well, I think he was trying too hard to be badass. The actor and character just didn't seem to fit very well for me.

For me, the premise sounds interesting, I just think there were better ways to bring us into this universe instead of using up a whole episode in our Supernatural universe.

[twisted-slinky.livejournal.com]

^^What you said. I didn't think the episode was terrible, but it wasn't our usual type of storytelling and mixing that with a ton of characters we don't come about really wasn't a good choice. I could see the potential for their storyline, if only they handled it differently. If they get the green for this series I really hope they re-think a.) their style and b.) the focus of the story. I'm with you on David, he was the only remotely interesting character. With Ennis, for some reason it felt like he was being forced upon us--in other words, we were being directed toward feeling sympathetic toward him, into being interested in his family's backstory...And the actor just couldn't bring that extra spark unfortunately.

[metallidean-grl.livejournal.com]

I agree, if the show gets a greenlight they do need to rethink their approach. And perhaps, get a different actor for Ennis.

I liked the way you described Ennis, "being forced upon us" and trying to get us to feel sympathetic towards him. Sadly, I really didn't feel much sympathy for him. I'm not sure if it was the actor, or the way he was written, or maybe it's just a little bit of both.

After reading your comment it dawned on me, do you think they were trying to have these two main characters mirror personalities of Dean and Sam? Meaning, David would be more "Sam-like" and Ennis more "Dean-like?" I especially thought that when they had Dean and Ennis say Awesome at the same time. That whole scene felt stilted to me, and the fact that they said awesome at the same time didn't feel natural to me, like it does when Dean and Sam say the same things at the same time. Then Ennis is all of a sudden all badass, etc. I think they tried to get him to be and react too much like Dean and this actor just couldn't handle it. He is too young and immature as an actor to pull off the gravitas that Jensen can pull off. And yes, totally agree that that actor couldn't bring that "extra spark."

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

I really wanted to like it, but the whole 'soapy' concept didn't appeal to me at all, I just can't see all the glitz and glamour being a format that would appeal to hard-core Supernatural fans.

And like you, I found the characters shallow; I simply didn't care about them.

I just don't think I'm ever going to be able to reconcile anything with 'Supernatural' if it doesn't involve the J's. :(

[metallidean-grl.livejournal.com]

I agree, I think the format might not appeal to the hardcore SPN fan. I do think it caters more to the VD format than anything.

With only one episode new characters might be a little shallow, of course, in the pilot Dean and Sam were already very multi-layered characters and became even more layered in following episodes. I would hope that given time these characters would be able to develop into strong, multi-dimensional characters. I did like David. I found him charismatic and love his nonchalance and "in your face" kind of attitude in regards to being a shifter. Ennis, though, he would have to grow on me. I didn't care as much for him from the get go.

If the show did get picked up, I do think they need to drop Supernatural from the title and just label it Bloodlines, or something else altogether.

[sasha-dragon.livejournal.com]

I've yet to summon up the courage to watch this yet. I will one day but the more I hear about it the less keen I am about seeing it.