SPN sur la toile (reviews ...)

In my line of work, I often spend a great deal of time entreating readers to give a show a chance. You win some (The X-Files, Buffy, to name a classic few), you lose some (too many to count, but pardon me while I lay another batch of flowers at the tombstone of Pushing Daisies).

With the CW’s Supernatural (which will always feel like a WB show to me), it worked the other way. For the past few seasons (basically, since the show took up residence on overcrowded Thursday night), fans of Supernatural have been begging, hounding, pleading with me to get with the program. I knew where they were coming from. It’s my kind of show, and I recognized that from the start—from the morning I first saw a clip of the Winchester boys’ mom bursting into flames (followed by Sammy’s unfortunate girlfriend meeting the same fate) in the teaser at the WB upfront way back in spring 2005.

I kept up with Supernatural through most of the first season, and enjoyed it, singing its praises from time to time in the magazine and elsewhere. But once it got buried in the Thursday trenches against a bunch of megahits that my job requires I keep up on, I somehow let it slide. And it kept on sliding. (Being somewhat OCD about certain types of show, I knew this wasn’t the sort of program I could watch casually or sporadically or even out of sequence. You either commit or you don’t.) It got to the point where an entire season would build up on the DVR and then I'd get the boxed-set DVD so I could clear the recorder, with the best of intentions to catch up first chance I got. (Note to self: You almost never get that chance.)

Eventually recognizing (around last holiday season, with two seasons worth of DVDs staring at me from the shelf) that divine providence was not going to intervene in this instance, I took the plunge with the goal to catch up with Supernatural in time to enjoy this year’s pivotal and possibly climactic fifth season of apocalyptic mayhem alongside the loyal fans. It’s the best decision I made all year.

Having spent the last few weeks burning through season 4 on DVR and just this week relishing the thrilling final episodes, which repeat tonight (8-10 pm/ET) in advance of next week’s season opener, let me just say: How can you not love a show that refers to the impending apocalypse as a “planetary enema?” (That’s the snarky archangel Zachariah talking, representing “senior management” at Angel HQ, which had no intention of stopping the worst-case scenario that’s about to unfold.) At its entertaining best, Supernatural is a ridiculously scary, frighteningly funny thrill ride with (in the greatest post-Buffy tradition) a fiercely emotional center as it plunges the brothers Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, two of the hardest-working and most appealing young actors on TV) into hell on Earth. And in the case of Dean, actual Hell.

These poor boys. They’ve saved so many souls along the way, but they keep falling short in their own destiny sweepstakes. All of season three, they kept desperately trying to keep Dean from having to fulfill his pledge (made to save Sam) to be dragged to Hell. Didn’t work. Last season’s cliffhanger found Dean savaged by hellhounds who ripped him apart as he was thrown into a terrifying inferno. (His memories of the compromises he made Down Way Under were among the most powerful reveals of the season.) Dean was brought back to Earth by angels (Misha Collins' soulful Castiel is a terrific addition), but as usual, this show is less Touched By an Angel than, say, bitch-slapped. Dean’s resurrection was hardly cause for rejoicing. He didn’t know that he’d already set the breaking of the seals (the stepping stones to apocalypse) in motion. And he never dreamed that it would be his beloved Sammy, hopped up on an addiction to demon blood thanks to the manipulations of one-time protector-demon Ruby, who would seal the deal by finally offing the fearsome Lilith (the “first demon” representing the “final seal”), thus opening the door for Lucifer’s rising.

So there we have it. On Supernatural, the worst of times are the best of times. The possibilities for this season are endless, and I couldn’t be happier to be made miserable by whatever Eric Kripke and his fiendish minions have in store. (Speaking of writerly touches, how much do I love Felicity’s Rob Benedict as the recently introduced “Chuck the prophet,” who’s been writing and anticipating the Winchesters’ exploits in pulp-book form but now finds himself caught up in this new and unpredictable volume.)

Because of the ridiculous glut of Thursday programming (which this season gets even more intense with the introduction of FlashForward, Fringe and even The Vampire Diaries to the mix), I can’t promise I’ll be watching Supernatural in real time. Depends on what’s happening on the Really Big Shows (monster hits like CSI, Survivor, Grey’s Anatomy, The Mentalist, plus the cult NBC comedies). But that’s hardly the end of the world. We’ll keep covering the show in depth—check out Supernatural news and past recaps here. I’ll keep as current as I know how, now that I’m back on the same page as the Supernatural faithful to whom I’ve long pledged I’d catch up.

It’s been hell, and I mean that in a good way. All said, a summer horribly well spent.

http://www.tvguidemagazine.com/matt-roush-daily-review/my-supernatural-summer-2228.html