Why Supernatural Has Slipped Lately, General

As “Supernatural” heads into its eighth and possibly final season, fans are clamoring for a return to glories of previous seasons. But is that even possible?

A common complaint found on “Supernatural” fan site forums is the lack of interesting stories between Sam and Dean Winchester, or lack of Sam and Dean stories at all.

Since the end of season five when creator Eric Kripke left as show runner and Sera Gamble took over the show seemingly lost its way and Gamble has taken the brunt of the backlash from fans. Kripke has remained on show as a consultant since his “departure” though so it’s not like story ideas haven’t been passed through him.

To understand the direction the show took after season five it’s important to remember where the show was supposed to go from its original inception. Kripke’s original storyline for “Supernatural” was only supposed to run for five seasons.

There are fans who complain that the introduction of angels and Castiel in season four ruined the mythology of the show. As someone who has a keen interest in theology, Kripke’s version of the Judeo/Christian mythology was interesting and suspenseful. The introduction of angels didn’t ruin the show; it opened up possibilities for advancement in stories and different paths for the writers to take.

The crux of “Supernatural” as it turned out was to prevent the apocalypse from the Book of Revelations from the Christian Bible. In a world where monsters, angels and demons run wild this story made perfect sense, especially with the way it wove into the personal story of Sam and Dean (more on that later).

The season five episode “Hammer of the Gods” is where the show might have backed itself into a corner. The plot of this episode was that the gods from other religions, like Odin, Kali and Ganesh just to name a few, gathered to discuss the oncoming Judeo/Christian apocalypse and how to handle it. Inevitably Lucifer shows up and wipes the floor with them and then says “You know, I never understood you pagans. You're such petty little things. Always fighting, always happy to sell out your own kind, no wonder you forfeited this planet to us. You are worse than humans. You're worse than demons. And yet you claim to be gods.”

Not only did Lucifer show his dominance over the other gods by killing them easily, he says that his religion, his God, is the most powerful. It’s hard to say if that is Christianity or Judaism because the show borrows elements from both and conveniently never mentions Jesus but that’s beside the point. In the season five finale, again which was supposed to be the series finale, Sam throws himself and Lucifer back into Lucifer’s cage in hell that was supposed to be the end of the show. While we fans will never truly know how Kripke intended the show to end because “Supernatural” was already picked up for season six, “Swan Song” had an end of the story feel to it.
So what did “Hammer of the Gods” do to the show? It put it in a bind going forward. If Lucifer easily defeated gods from other religions because “Judoanity” (easier to just call the shows main mythology that) was dominant among world mythologies and Sam and Dean defeated Lucifer, what’s left for them to tackle that would pose a viable threat? And let’s not forget, Kripke was still running the show.

The end of the apocalypse marked the end of Sam and Dean’s journey in a way as well. The first five seasons tied the shows mythology into the personal battles of the Winchester brothers. Season one was about finding Winchester patriarch John. Season two followed the brother’s journey to discover more about Sam’s abilities. Season three was Sam trying to get Dean out of his crossroads deal to bring him back from the dead. Season four is all about preventing the apocalypse and season five charted the boy’s course to stop Lucifer. All five main story arcs had personal ties to the brothers once it was revealed that Sam and Dean were the vessels for angels Lucifer and Michael respectively.

With the apocalypse was over, door was wide open to explore other things which were a blessing and a curse at the same time. Season six was convoluted with too many storylines going on at once. From Sam’s soullessness, the angel civil war, alpha monsters and the mother-of-all monsters Eve, there was too much going on to fully explore all these story lines.

On top of the jumbled mess that was season six there was no personal attachment for the Winchesters. The first half of season was the boys search for John. The second half of the season continued with the Winchester families hunt for the demon that killed John’s wife and Sam and Dean’s mother, Mary. The fight was personal and the emotional struggle between Sam and Dean about the events leading up to “Devil’s Trap” flooded over and helped us connect to them. The fight against the supernatural was always personal for the brothers and that element made it all that much better for us watching at home. Who could forget when Dean told Sam that before John died he told him that he might have to kill Sam in “Hunted,” or Sam having to relive Dean’s death every day in the awesome episode “Mystery Spot” showing him that despite all his efforts he wasn’t going to be able to save Dean from his crossroads deal. Season four is mostly remembered as the “divide of the Winchesters” because of Sam’s anger toward Lilith and partnership with Ruby. One of the biggest moments of that season came in “When the Levee Breaks” as Sam and Dean finally battle it out and Dean utters the same words to Sam that John did years ago, if you leave don’t ever come back. Of course Dean thought better of this and the very next episode seeks Sam out to save him but that’s what makes this show great, the bond between the brothers and how everything going on around them effected their relationship.

The intended final season, season five, pit the brothers against each other again but for different reasons. They were supposed to be the vessels for the showdown of the millennium between Michael and Lucifer, only they didn’t follow the plan set out by God and did things their own way. Again, the overall mythology/story arc relied upon the Winchesters, not the other way around.

This is how “Supernatural” dug itself into a corner after they stopped the apocalypse. Sam and Dean, from the time they were born, were destined to help the world burn for the angels. They chose another route as Chuck put it, they chose family. Without some type of evil that posed a greater threat than Lucifer and without some emotional connection to the big baddie, it’s really not that big a surprise that “Supernatural” hasn’t been as great as seasons past. The reliance on external forces (i.e. guest stars) has been a crutch for the last two seasons that the show needs to do away with. The show hasn’t turned away from Sam and Dean because the writers or Gamble, the one who is often blamed for the so called demise of the show, don’t like them anymore. The fact is that Kripke had a fantastic five season arc that was played out mostly up until the final episode of season five and even then it was easy to see how he originally intended the show to end.

While I agree the writing of Sam and Dean has felt off at times during the last two seasons there was bound to be some fallout from continuing a story that was only planned for so-many episodes. Gamble took a shot at something different and it didn’t pan out but it wasn’t all her fault. And this isn’t a defense of Gamble either because there were some points during seasons six and seven that had me scratching my head too. All I’m saying is there are legit reasons why the show tailed off a bit and instead of blaming the writers, take a look back and see how “Supernatural” set itself up for the slight nosedive. By the way, the Leviathan story line probably sounded good in the beginning but totally sucked.

*edited to add paragraph breaks *

This post has been edited by Raven524 on May 22 2012, 07:38 PM

I see no difference between when Eric was here to when Sera took over. Besides Eric was still on board during all of Season 6 not sure about season 7. People who do that are looking for reasons to nit pick...

Let me phrase this again, Eric had an ending to that specific ARC not the show in season 5, I think many people take that quote out of context. He had a 5 year plan for that ARC not the show.

So we kill one big bad, can't another rise?

Anyhow I am enjoyed this season much more than last season, where is was throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.

So in my opinion SPN hasn't slipped in quality, sure it has had some hiccups but what show doesn't have ups and down.

The show is still the best on TV right now IMO

April

Il start off by saying that you do make some really good points ,but you really need to put some spaces between paragraphs.

People including me,dont really have the patience to read a poorly written post.

My take on it is this:

Supernatural in its first seasons was a lot more scary,and it didnt really had chick flick moments like it does have now.This is mainly cause it switched to CW.

Now by scary i dont mean just that they actually showed you back then what was happening during a kill scene for example(and not just blood on the wall),the monsters were more intense also.The characters were in real danger of dying etc.

And all in all the lore made sense.Now there throwing detergent on monsters to make it go away ,thats just ridiculous.

Then you had the support characters around the show.It went from Papa Winchester,Bobby(earlier seasons),Meg season 1,Yellow eyes,Ruby(1st one),Bella to Dick,paranoid guy in a van,really crappy ruby 2 and so on.

After season 3 the show lots a lot of what made it Supernatural because of the move to CW.I still liked 4,not as much,and 5 was okish..after that i just watched it because i want to see how it ends.

@ Freyja, i should prefaced what i wrote by saying that i believe this is the best show on tv. when i wrote this my thoughts weren't to knock the show but provide some reasoning to people who always complain about it.

i started reading the comments for the after-episode reviews and it seems all people do is rant about the show and how much it sucks and they blame everything under the sun.

i just wanted to present a different perspective for people to think about instead of complaining about everything.

and i agree, overall the show hasn't slipped, just some minor hiccups here and there, poor choice of words on my part.

@tyrael, i apologize for the way the text came out. this is my first time posting and i orginally wrote this in word.

thanks for the feedback!!

@dchardon26

Oh my post wasn't directed at yours specifically just those in general who say Sera destroyed the show and it should have ended because Eric said so. When you point out to them that Eric was still involved with the show up until last season, he might still be on board "not totally sure" and that Eric had that 5 year plan to end that Arc they usually don't have a comeback.

Or when you tell them that Robert Singer came up with Soulless Sam and he wanted to do the entire season not just half, they have no come back. Most of the time when people spout off they don't have all the facts together. Especially when they talk ratings.. They expect the show to get season 1 ratings on the CW when none of their shows are doing well makes me laugh.

I get what Tyrael said about being scary and there were a lot of MOTW this season that brought back that season 1 &2 Vibe. Freaking clowns man *shudders*

I don't see any more chick flick moments than before, so that I disagree with...

I am thinking with season 8 and the move we might be more casual viewer friendly than before. More focus on MOTW and less focus on the mytharc.

April

@dchardon26 I fixed your paragraph breaks for you. Unfortunately, Word sometimes loses formatting when you cut and past into here, when that happens you can just use the 'edit' button and put in the breaks manually to fix it.

As for me, I agree that they can't go back to Season 1 or 2, other than maybe to make feel more like it by having the focus be not so much on the overall arc, but rather more on the boys working together to solve the cases.

There are always hiccups and there are episodes or storylines that I may not always agree with, but as you say, if you take a look at where we started and where we are now, you can see why certain choices were made. I think that's why the show is still around after seven season and from the looks of things, will be around for more than S8.

It is difficult to re-set the stage, but I think they have done so (I always viewed S6 as sort of a transition year). I did enjoy the Levi's, especially Dick. Again maybe S7 is also kind of a transition to position the show to not be as contained as the first five (with Erik's Vision) but making it into something a bit more open where the writers can actually go in more than one direction. Who knows, I guess we'll have to see.

But I do agree that SN is one of the best shows on TV right now and I can't wait for the new episodes to resume

I have to agree that its the lack of personal connectionthat has troubled the story. Any hunter could have done what Sam and Dean accomplished in seasons six and seven. They are no longer chosen, nor special. This creates a problem when story telling if your main characters are interchangeable with other lesser characters. I think the original essay was well thought out and written.

@ raven524, thanks for fixing the breaks, i appreciate it

No problem! Glad to help

Just want to say, Season 8 will not be it for Supernatural. There is no way the CW and Warner Brothers are not going to capitalize on promoting a Final Season like they did for 7th Heaven, Smallville & One Tree Hill.

What do all 3 of those have in common? They were all WB shows that ran for 9 or more seasons and had over 180 episodes.

Supernatural is the big earner right now for the Netflix deal that could help CW earn one billion dollars from the deal.

Besides now Supernatural has a boss that has gone on recorded many times of saying it is one of his favorite shows. Then he went and backed up what he had been saying and paired it with a new show (which some could argue CW considered the #1 pilot) and moved it to Wednesday.

Then there is the fact that he went on record saying this isn't intended to be the last season in any way, shape or form.

Supernatural lost its way when the brothers could be controlled by angels like they were puppets and the brothers spent the whole time hiding things from each other rather than working together to solve cases.

The first 2 seasons of the show were scary for 2 reasons. There was the presence of evil/monsters that actually looked scary(wendigo,shapeshifters,reapers,vampires etc.) and had bad intentions, but were beatable when the bros. learned their weakness. Second, the people who were evil and had malevolent plans(the Benders,Faith,Simon Said).

When I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns(I am ashamed to admit it), there is a sense of realism conveyed with all of these weird, creepy monsters in the realistic setting of high school. It causes you to suspend disbelief and make the impossible seem possible, thereby adding to their scariness. Supernatural's first 3 seasons had that, but when the show became about the unforseen predestiny of the bros. serving as vessels for archangels, the bros. no longer had control over their own lives.

They were taken from one location to another, backward and forward in time against their will. Their adversaries could not be stopped or killed, so they were powerless. This helplessness coupled with the infighting between the bros., which was depressing, leaves the audience yearning for the first seasons.

Supernatural should go back and get the director of photography to design sets that are forboding and scary like the first seasons, hire the special effects crew that did the make up for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, write stories where the bros. act as detectives again and have fewer goofy episodes. The bros. should face a bad guy who is trying to kill all hunters, the only family the bros. have left and only they can stop him.

I completly agree with everything you said above!


Also, to the OP. I agree with you 1000% and then some. I love SN.I have from day 1 and I always will but since season 5. Its been very much...well sucks. I have not seen much of season 7 for that and other various reasons. (I stopped watching right after bobby died) The whole introduction of angels was horrid and it should have stopped the way Kripke left it. I Hope in next season its can go back to it's main roots. I feel as a fandom we have lost many fans since back in its glory days and it saddens me It truly does. Sera as a showunner was beyond terrible and I am thrilled were getting diff writers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZeGfiGcmDU


This is why Supernatural lost its way after season 3.There`s no more of that.There`s no more good dialogue,there`s no more two edited for content cowboys taking evil by the horns and edited for content it over.

Also the added ,well actually remove effects from the show.Seriously after season 3,and maybe 4 ,this show has the worst CGI ever.

This post has been edited by Irishgirl on May 29 2012, 06:48 PM

@ Tyrael yeah the CGI has been shoddy as of late. I remember the "hole" that Same jumped into to get Lucifer back into the cage looked very fake. But there have been some good moments as well.

"My Bloody Valentine" will always be one of the grossest episodes to me just for the beginning, when the couple literally eat each other to death. I still can't watch that scene because it looks so great.

I think part of the problem has been the shift to heavy CGI instead of relying on good makeup.

It seems like lots of fans on here still want the show to go back to the format for seasons 1 & 2, which while they were great, I found the expanded mythology to be awesome.

"Lazarus Rising" is my favorite episode of all time which most people might hate because it was the start of the angels.

I'm a big Smallville fan too and I recently started watching the show from the beginning. Re-watching season 1 made me have a greater appreciation for it because of the purity of it as compared to the rest of the series.

That doesn't mean that season 10 was any less awesome because season 1 was so awesome.

Supernatural needed to grow from the brothers just driving cross country chasing monsters, without that deeper connection to the events surrounding them we as fans wouldn't have cared as much.

Watching Dean tell Sam he might have to kill him was astounding when we first saw it but after realizing that Sam was Lucifer's vessel it took on a whole new meaning. If John knew about all of the angels and the big throw down between Michael and Lucifer and knew of the boys role in it, for him to say Dean needs to kill Sam if he couldn't save/stop him was huge.

It's because the stakes kept getting raised for the boys the emotional attachment kept growing as well.

I just hope when the show finally does end that we get a satisfying ending and the show doesn't pull a "Lost" on us.

First nice post, I never thought about it that way before As to the ending, both the boys and Kripke have stated that they would love to take the concept to feature length movies. Just imagine what they could do with a real budget

Depending on if they are still considering that option, they most likely will end whatever myth arc they are doing and leave it open for a future on the big screen.