Early seasons of SPN are superior
so I'm re-watching Supernatural (I'm always re-watching SPN, don't mind me) and I realised why the early seasons are so freakin good whereas the laters ones are a complete mess...
Horror was the core theme of Supernatural (yes, I'm not discarding the brothers' drama, I'll get to it in a minute). These beautiful scare tactics that they employed were amazing: the crib mobile toy rotating, shadows moving out of the corner of the eyes, toys going off, subtle bloody Mary reflections in the mirror, creepy skulls dug from the ground, the ghosts flickering. Hell yea they nailed 'Scary just got sexy' with these.
Don't get me started on the background music. Whimsical music crescendo, building up the anticipation. The rock music blaring through the Impala. What happened to the cool ass music in the later seasons? They just played this weird, sad tune like someone's blowing raspberries to show grief and that's it!
Monster of the week theme and the lores/legends in early seasons were much, much better than S12's Foundry or the later season episode with bizarre tentacle porn thingy (you know which one I'm talking about). It just didn't feel the same. The stories were poorly written and even more poorly executed.
Early seasons used to be purely about Sam and Dean (as it should have been throughout) Them against the world, heaven and hell. No dumbass angel lurking in the background like a pathetic third wheel. No king of hell bitching about his sad childhood for two whole seasons. No Soccer mom half assing their way into hunting.
Foreshadowing was done so beautifully! Everytime I re-watch the early seasons I find a few bits that connects to something that happened initially in say S1-2. The parallels are done beautifully and writing is good, and I mean 'I wanna use this quote as a wallpaper' good.
The struggle for the boys was real. They had to do their own research, save their own asses, stitch their wounds, pop their dislocated shoulders back in the place. Later seasons? Bunker has answer to everything, angel healing wounds with a flash of light, Lucifer bringing Sam back from the dead without asking for anything (and no, taking him to Jack is not a good enough bargain), Jack healing wounds or whatever. Where is the damn struggle?! Where is the hero's journey?!
I miss the beautiful, colourful motel rooms that had its own personality. I HATE the bunker (yes I know a lot of people love it because Dean has a good shower, they have a home etc, etc) but no! Bunker is lame and boring and monotonous. There isn't a single thing I like about it. Gimme back my motel rooms with the sunburst mirror!
Story arc or lack thereof from S12 onwards. The main plot just got duller and duller from S12 onward and it felt like the writers got lazy and stopped putting efforts. There was no build up and the plot felt forced. The main arcs didn't feel exciting enough. BMoL and Kelly's pregnancy: the who and why? Jack: predictable. Other Micheal and Micheal Dean: meh, next! God as the big bad: interesting but I don't think they have it in them to execute this correctly.
Irrelevant/Unnecessary characters and their mini plots. S1-5 focuses purely on the brothers and that's what I'm here. I don't care how and why an idiot angel opened purgatory. It sounded more like a dull spin off plot than main story arc. I don't care about prophets and their lives (yeah Kevin is in Advance Placement, what am I to do with that?). I don't care about the different angel garrisons at war (again a plot for a lame spin off). I don't care about Crowley, his son or his relationship with Rowena. Tell me how this affects the boys. If it doesn't, please let's move on. Whatever was going on with Cole Trenton was pointless. I don't care about Mary and her hunting escapades with BMoL. I don't care about Kelly's pregnancy. The multi-universe and all characters they vomited back in the show with this. Not needed! Let Charlie, Gabriel and Bobby's memory rest in peace. Nick's killer storyline and wayward sisters. Enough said. Empty and the deal with Cas and Meg 2.0? Boring! Billy playing the bad cop, the whole death's library? Poorly executed and it turned into a bowl of cold spaghetti. In the end, the focus moved from the boys to useless characters and mini plots. Fuck that! Supernatural is about Sam and Dean and that's about it.
The direction. Later seasons lack the beauty of scenic shots of the landscape, close on up the boys' faces, the lights hitting their faces to show their beauty. Camera angles and slow panning shots. I miss the beauty that were the early seasons.