CBR: Permanent Damage - Dec 30, 2009

[joncomixz]

Agree with you about the last 10 minutes of Battlestar Galactica. For such a sophisticated, convoluted, intriguing and well written show, to end with the idiotic "Back to Nature" stuff was unbelieveable. What were they thinking? Even beyond the outdated noble savage stuff, there were still Cylons in the Universe, including their planet, so what were they doing sending their ships to the Sun? And then the meta thing with Tricia Helfer and James Callis acting as ironic angels. I hope they do a follow up TV movie in which they readress the ending. The series was so good that the bad ending was not enough to ruin it for me though. Good recommendations, I will check out Primeval.

[j_stein]

Steven,

You've piqued my interest in Supernatural; I've never seen it before. Can you recommend a season to jump in on?

best,
jason

[Steven Grant]

You've piqued my interest in Supernatural; I've never seen it before. Can you recommend a season to jump in on?

Okay, the original setup on SUPERNATURAL is this: there are "hunters" out there, people who track down and deal with supernatural forces. Sam and Dean Winchester are the sons of John Winchester, one of the most notorious (among Hunter circles, since few outside the Hunters even know Hunters exist) Hunters around. Their mother was killed by a demon, and subsequently they were mostly raised on the road by their dad, but while Dean has always been raised to be a hunter, Sam went off to college and out of the life.

Then their dad goes missing, and Dean brings Sam back in to help look for him. That's the first season, where they face a variety of supernatural creatures, but things generally remain on a fairly mundane level as they find their daddy.

At the end of the first season, the real enemies are introduced - demons - and the second season ramps things up a little.

The third season amps things up, with Dean cutting a deal with a demon to save Sam, while they track down the demon who killed their mother, and attempt to find some way for Dean out of his demonic deal.

These three seasons I watched mainly by getting the box sets when they materialized and watching the first episode, the last two episodes, and random comedy episodes in between. (SUPERNATURAL tends to have very good "light" episodes.)

The third season would be a decent place to start, but the show really amps up to its primary storyline in season 4, where Dean and Sam frequently work at cross purposes while attempting to stop the impending Apocalypse and deal with not only evil demons but crazy angels. It also introduces Misha Collins' angel Cassiel, one of the best characters on American TV today.

If you want to get into it slow but skipping a lot of filler, watch the first and final two episodes of both seasons 1 & 2 then jump into season 3. Me, I think I'd just plunge in on season 4, where the show really gets jumping.

- Grant

[bartl]

Okay, the original setup on SUPERNATURAL is this: there are "hunters" out there, people who track down and deal with supernatural forces. Sam and Dean Winchester are the sons of John Winchester, one of the most notorious (among Hunter circles, since few outside the Hunters even know Hunters exist) Hunters around. Their mother was killed by a demon, and subsequently they were mostly raised on the road by their dad, but while Dean has always been raised to be a hunter, Sam went off to college and out of the life.

Ah. I stopped watching about halfway through Season 1.