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Friday Fun Thread for June 14, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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First season was fine, but the writing was already on the wall by the end of it. Didn't even bother with the second season and don't have the impression I missed anything.

Kripke is also just not a good writer for anything but short episodic monster-of-the-week style shows with black/white morality - see Supernatural. Almost all the overarching storylines were awful and contrived. He can do some decent character work, but it's always obvious whether a character is supposed to be good or evil. And there as well he had a massive problem with dragging things out by ending every season by putting everyone back to starting positions.

And there as well he had a massive problem with dragging things out by ending every season by putting everyone back to starting positions.

Did he? I think SPN had its problems - the plot was the same loop over and over: find Biblical Macguffin in pieces across the season, build magical thing, vanquish enemy - and by the end of his run the show was really showing its budgetary constraints (the show simply couldn't do the apocalyptic premise justice, which is why the characters went around collecting items like a Ubisoft game) but I think Kripke's actual time as showrunner (S1-S5) actually did have a plot that built to a conclusive end instead of cyclical resets.

He left after that and basically every single plotline from those early days was recycled over and over.

Imo, SPN was at its strongest in the first two seasons, when it was 90% episodic monster and 10% overarching season storyline. Kripke also said himself that he originally intended for the show to be only three seasons. My personal impression was that the Azazel storyline (the first two seasons) fit with the design of the show in general (in a show about hunting down monsters, hunting down a more powerful monster makes sense) and seemed clearly intended from the beginning, the Lilith storyline ( third and fourth season) already felt tacked-on and increasing scope clearly strained their resources as you said, and the Lucifer storyline (fifth season) was just the same problems, but moreso. He also did several bait-and-switches already (SAM IS DEAD! Lol nope he isn't DEAN IS IN HELL! lol nope he's back on earth).

Every season after that was just repeating the mistakes that Kripke had already committed. Kripke also still stayed on the show as an consultant for the entire runtime, and being the orginal creator I don't believe that he didn't give his blessing for the garbage that was to come.