(no subject)

[fan_eunice]

I owe two, because yesterday was a seriously bad brain day and so I missed it. Will post second later today.

serrico wanted to know what my feelings were on how Supernatural left things at the mid-season hiatus. To which I can mostly just sort of stare helplessly and say 'I'll get back to you when the entire season has finished airing'. I swear this show is like the poster child for why I tend to prefer watching things as seasons instead of week to week, and I don't even know why I'm watching it that way this year. Well, yes I do, but most of those reasons are deeply shallow, and I am hoping to have enough willpower after the hiatus to wait to watch the rest in one chunk in the week of the season finale. I probably won't. *cries*

Even with the very best of shows, I have difficulty teasing out exactly what I think and feel about what's going on with active arc/plot/character development wise midstream. I much prefer the broader whole season context to really grapple with them. And with Supernatural, well, even in its very best seasons this show has, well, issues. Both in narrative structure/pacing and in it's tendency towards being deeply problematic about stuff. There are a great many things this season so far that are mashing my buttons in a good way, and more than a few that make me go 'really show? again? can you please, just once, not do that? or that. and also that.'

How I feel and what I think about where they left it? Is going to depend entirely on where they go with it over the rest of the year. *flails helplessly*

Comments

[heresluck]

Even with the very best of shows, I have difficulty teasing out exactly what I think and feel about what's going on with active arc/plot/character development wise midstream. I much prefer the broader whole season context to really grapple with them.

MY SISTER. *clings to you*

[fan_eunice]

*clings back*

I just...don't have all the information yet! And I can't count the number of times a season arc of something ends up being so much more coherent and satisfying in it's totality than it did individually. One of the most striking examples of it for me will always remain season 6 of Buffy. Week to week was really difficult for me for reasons that would take a novel to write out. The first time I watched it as a whole, though, was just an entirely different and far more satisfying/interesting experience.

Honestly, most of my best show experiences have been season or entire show marathons, and the easier it gets to do that (because we live in the future now) the more likely I am to save things up for one big go instead of keeping up real time. I know speculation and having to wait for what happens next are part of the experience for a lot of people. For me, it was always the thing I put up with to get the whole story :D

[fan_eunice]

Also, your icon just made me giggle snort out loud.

[serrico]

*flails helplessly along with you*

Fair enough. Lord knows I've had to train myself out of trying to seriously guess at the whole picture based on the first quarter, or third, or half of a season, because that way lies more bitterness over what could've been than enjoyment over what is. Fangirling satisfactorily is a SKILL.

[fan_eunice]

Hee, it IS a skill. And Supernatural, man. I love it but it kind of has a history of introducing fascinating themes and philisophical implications that it then doesn't...fully utilize or work through the implications of. Which is FINE, it really is. I don't need much more than the bare bones to construct deep thoughts about shallow shit from, but until I know exactly how much they're gonna give me to work with "that way lies more bitterness over what could've been than enjoyment over what is" is such a risk.

Like, okay, I am actually deeply enamored of the "I did what I had to do" repetition. There are very few characters on this show who wouldn't give you a blank, uncomprehending stare if you said 'The ends do not justify the means' to them...and most of them ended up dead. Which ends are being justified varies, but the willingness to go there when the right ones are on the line? Yeah. I could chew on that for a long time, but the context from which I build how I'm gonna do that...just don't know yet, because I have no idea either what brilliance or bullshit they're yet to pull that I'm going to have to incorporate into a final evaluation. Heh.

[heresluck]

In many cases, the most satisfying thing for me is week-to-week watching and a marathon after the fact -- but I totally know what you mean! S5 of the Wire annoyed me when watched weekly and came together WAY better when watched as a whole season.

I have been thinking a lot, for a while now, about how the fannish impulse leads to marathon watching and yet in many ways fandom is built on serial watching: fandom is what happens in the gaps between eps.