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Notes -
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.
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