CW SF: Supernatural, Smallville, The Reaper

[ShannonA]

CW announced their upfronts for the fall season, and word is that both Smallville and Supernatural made the cut and will be back for another season.

(Anyone want to tell me why Supernatural is worth watching?)

New up is The Reaper, a story about a bounty hunter for the devil!!?? Which sounds like it's going to be competing with The Bionic Woman for first show to die a horrible death.

Aliens in America, despite its name, isn't SF at all. It's about Muslim foreign exchange students living in America.

And although it's not genre, fans of intelligent TV will be gnashing their teeth over the fact that Veronica Mars is notably missing from the fall schedule. Maybe as a mid-season replacement they say. Sure, go ahead and pull the other one. RIP, Veronica Mars: 2004-2007.

[wiseblood]

Well, if The Reaper is anything like Brimstone it'll die a premature death but be awesome.

As far as Supernatural goes are you asking because you've seen it and don't like it or because you haven't seen and want to be sold on it?

[ShannonA]

As far as Supernatural goes are you asking because you've seen it and don't like it or because you haven't seen and want to be sold on it?

Never seen it, and now that it has made 2 or 3 seasons, I want to be convinced to drop the DVDs into my Netflix queue.

[wiseblood]

Never seen it, and now that it has made 2 or 3 seasons, I want to be convinced to drop the DVDs into my Netflix queue.

The core of Supernatural is nothing remarkable. If you were to read the plot synopsis for random stand alone episodes you'd probably think "meh, seen this before". And you'd be right. There is very little that's original about Supernatural. Two brothers in a muscle car hunting monsters. Where the show excels is in its presentation. The brothers act with the precision of experienced hunters only rarely finding themselves in the dark about what they are fighting. This was the one single realization while watching the first couple episodes that made me decide to continue watching. The Winchester boys are not there to act as proxies for the clueless audience. They know what's out there, where it tends to live, and how to kill it.

The writing is pretty good and the show is good at mixing humor and drama. You can definitely believe that these guys are brothers. Just be warned that it starts off very episodic but there is a promise of something bigger there. And there is an arc that develops over the two seasons that have passed already.

This is one of the few shows that I try to watch "live" these days. Pretty much everything else gets DVRed and watched when I have time. Hope that helped a bit.