The Unnatural decline of Supernatural

That's right... if you know me at all (as many of you do), you probably knew that it was only a matter of time before I wrote this review.

Yes, "Supernatural", as conceived by Eric Kripke, still has a rating on IMDB of 8.6 out of 10, as well as what has become a true Cult following over the years.  I didn't really start watching it until a year or two ago, but it quickly became my favorite show ever... and I don't like to pick favorites, but I have to say I'm more of a fan of this than I was of Star Trek: The Next Generation as a kid, and that's saying a lot.

"The Grand Story"... Otherwise known as "The first Five Seasons"

Originally, the series was written out as a story that was meant to end with the last episode of the fifth season - the appropriately named "Swan Song".  However, it was doing so well at that point that it was allowed to live on year after year.  For anyone that has yet to see it, those first seasons are really where you need to start off.  Two brothers following in the footsteps of their father, leaving any chance of a normal life behind them to set off and face the forces of evil across the country and everything that goes along with it.  The highlights?  Let's see... Demons, Vampires, Werewolves, Time-Travel plots, resurrection, corrupt Angels, Demi-Gods, Lucifer, God, Armageddon, and lots of Pie.  On top of that, the story of the relationship between the two brothers and their father neatly and poetically tied into the greater story of the relationships between God and his children - Namely, the Archangels: Michael and Lucifer.

'So, what's your issue now, Robin?'

What else was it that made those first seasons so good?  For one thing (and this is always very important to me), the plot was always consistent and there were rarely any holes in it, if at all.  What I really hate in a TV show or movie is when they contradict themselves and change the rules of their universe at some point or another.  Supernatural never did this, and they always could explain everything that happened with relatively good reasoning.  Even with plot-lines involving things like Time-Travel, they manage to keep the bitching from nerdy fans like myself down to a minimum... or, at least they used to, which is part of what lead me to want to write this article.

For any of you who are still following the show, I'm sure you'll agree that there has been a disappointing feeling in the pit of your stomach since somewhere in mid-season 9 or so... maybe even before that.  For example, the whole sub-plot where Castiel goes off to hunt down rogue Angels with what-her-face for half a dozen episodes was completely boring and turned out to be pointless as well.  Finally, in the middle of their "mission", she decides she doesn't want to do the show anymore, or the writers just decided to scrap the whole thing, and that was the last we saw of her.  And, nobody cared (at least I didn't).

Let's see... what else can I bitch about?

Oh, Season 10.

I think that the whole "Dean becoming a Demon" idea was a good one, and could have been played out really well.  If you ask me, they should have stretched that out for more than 3 episodes at the beginning of the season.  But the most annoying thing that start happening in that season: Am I the only person who noticed that Castiel only teleported (or "zapped", as Dean likes to call it) maybe once or twice in about 24 episodes?  He's supposed to be a mighty Angel of the Lord, and he consistently gets beat up and pushed around by all manner of Demons, Witches, etc.  They sucked everything that was good out of his character, and I noticed it - If I remember correctly, I believe I was screaming at the TV when he got his ass handed to him by Cain.  He doesn't do any "Angel" stuff anymore, and has lost his appeal almost completely.

If you don't see it, do yourself a favor - Go back and watch "Lazarus Rising" from Season 4 where Dean and Bobby first meet Cas, and compare that to the Cas of the current seasons... it's sad.

Also, I was sad to see that they killed of "Death", who was arguably one of the most interesting characters ever created.

Anyway, I could nit-pick about a dozen other details that I could sum up as sloppy writing as of late, but the most glaring stuff has come up in the past few episodes... really, the mid-season finale.  Let's sum it up:

1. For no apparent reason apart from the fact that Sam has been having dreams about "The Cage" (where he spent time in Hell with Michael, Lucifer - and don't forget, their brother Adam), he believes that God is telling him that he needs to go back there so that the "Darkness" (the new nemesis of this season) can be stopped.  The first problem is, they never really explain how or why this will stop the Darkness at all.  Sam and Dean would normally have seriously questioned it, and it made no sense for them to pursue the path that they did.

2. I still find it a little hard to swallow that Rowena is so powerful, and it annoys me.  I've never liked her character much, and wish she'd die already, but that won't happen.  Yes, she's a 300-year-old witch, but again, she shouldn't be able to trump an Angel and the King of Hell with so much ease.

3. And this is the big one.  In this last episode, Sam, Rowena, and Crowley manage to bring "The Cage" to them and bind Lucifer from escaping.  First of all, the cage doesn't look the same as it did when they showed a glimpse of it just a few episodes before, which is slightly annoying... but even more than that, it doesn't seem at all like the cage that Sam was actually locked in after Season 5.  It was supposed to be a "Fiery Pit" with chains and meat hooks.  It just looked like a regular jail cell.  However, the big question is, WHERE WERE MICHAEL AND ADAM???  That wasn't explained at all, and I think they should have explained it, or had them all be there to expand on the plot somehow - Like, I dunno, how about freeing poor Adam from the cage after like 6 years???

(Another thing, when Dean was in Hell, according to the show, time passed differently - One month on Earth was equal to Ten years in Hell.  That wasn't the case with Sam.)

After all of that, they give the impression that God Himself is actually going to make an appearance once the Season continues... it will be interesting to see how they handle that.  I know I sound like I'm tearing the show a new one here, but the truth is that I'm still a huge fan and I really do hope that they can make a rebound in the second half of the season.

Godspeed, guys.

UPDATE:
I recently read this article, and it seems as though many of the long-standing fans share some of my concerns, as well as a few others (I didn't realize that Dean and Castiel having a romantic relationship was such a big concern of fans everywhere):

http://www.dailydot.com/geek/spn-fans-talk-back-to-cw-on-twitter/

France, ISIS, and Dr. Barack Obama

In the midst of chaos, it is crucial that we, the people of Planet Earth, take a step back and take an honest, concise look at the situation that we find ourselves in.

After all, it has been said that the general public (at least in the United States) has a common memory of about two weeks when it comes to what is in the mainstream news.  That being said, the tragic atrocities that took place on Friday the 13th of November 2015 in Paris, France are currently at the forefront of the minds of us all... and in case it wasn't for even a few minutes, just open a web browser.  Naturally, the hearts and minds of all good and decent people across the planet have shown our solidarity and support for the families of the victims of these brutal and savage attacks.

Of course, it is with a heavy heart that I write these words.  Being that I am the proud parent of two children myself, whenever I receive word that a family living in any country has lost a son or daughter in either a car/suicide bombing, drone attack, etc., I immediately picture myself in their situation and imagine how I would feel - What if my four-year-old son were at his daycare and somebody decided to detonate a bomb in the name of the cause of ISIS?  I can't even begin to convey how painful that would be, and I don't want to even think about it...

We as Citizens of the United States don't think about that much, but perhaps we should.

Much like the way in which a doctor of medicine performs the diagnosis of a patient with a terminal form of cancer, I believe that we as members of society should take a fresh look at the prognosis of our planet.

How do we treat the cancer, and what is the cause of the cancer in the first place?  Is there more than one type of cancer present in the body of the planet?  If the government of the United States was the doctor on staff at this hypothetical hospital, how would you say that he/she was doing?

I'll get straight to the point: My prognosis?  The head doctor on staff has been treating the cancer with heavy doses of radiation therapy.  However, the problem with radiation therapy is that it often kills much of the healthy tissue in the body along with the cancer, and risks killing the patient altogether. In this case, the doctor consistently is receiving reports that the treatment is only continuing to kill off what is left of the patient, but refuses to alter his approach or even listen to his colleagues when they plead with him to attempt another method.  Could it be that the doctor has an ulterior motive?  Maybe the drug companies are paying him something extra on the side so that he goes out of his way to push their cancer-treating therapy?

Perhaps this is a crude metaphor, but my point is that the US government seems to be a doctor that continues to look at and try to only treat the symptoms of a disease with aggressive drugs without taking time to address the underlying causes of the disease itself.

With every drone strike that the US Government makes in the Middle East, multitudes of civilian women and children have been killed.  We have been doing this for well over a decade, believe it or not... and while the doctor would like you to believe that we are doing this in the name of defeating the cancer (Terrorism), the primary side-effect of the treatment itself has been causing the cancer to grow exponentially.  As innocent people in the countries of the Middle-East stand by to watch as their loved ones are blown to bits from drone attacks, it has become more and more clear that the side-effects of the medicine being employed is only causing the cancer to grow.  Instead of being seen as a doctor who has attempted to intervene in an effort to kill an infection of cancer, the United States has become more of a Dr. Frankenstein... creating a monster that has now come to threaten us all.  Unfortunately, the good people of Paris are now all too familiar with these repercussions

To be blunt, this shouldn't be anything that is of surprise to the Doctor in question... the assistant surgeon in the practice here (Otherwise known as the CIA) has had much experience in this area and has even coined a term for the phenomena: "Blowback"

The CIA has been dealing with the reality of Blowback for many decades now, and the most obvious case of this would likely be the case of the Taliban in Afghanistan - Or, as they were known back in the war against the Russians in the 1980's, the "Mujaheddin".  These were people like Osama Bin Laden and his comrades... trained and equipped by US secret operations to rebel against their Russian occupiers, only to organize and revolt against the very people who trained them decades later.

To sum it all up, how do we cure the cancer that we seem to have nurtured?

Honestly, I don't have much faith that it is something that can be cured, mainly because of the lack of political will (or even acknowledgement) that we find in Washington, D.C.

Still, it could be that all it comes down to would be for the doctor to actually come through and at least show that he/she has abandoned all other motives and truly has the best interests of the patient at heart.  Show that what we truly want for the people of the underprivileged countries of Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, etc., is for them to have equal access to the same basic human rights and freedoms that we claim to embrace in our own countries in the "Western World"...

One last point I'd like to make: Although some people might say that it makes me sound like I don't appreciate the tragic loss of life that we saw only a few days ago (I'm talking to you, 'Papa Bear'), the truth is that I am deeply saddened by all of this. Also, I really want to say that we should also think of the millions of people who call the countries of the Middle East their home, and of the real effect that it has had on them.  For the most part, those of us in the world who are fortunate enough to live in countries like the United States, England, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, New Zealand, etc., don't have to worry about things like car bombs and executions on a daily basis,  I think that we sometimes need to put ourselves in the shoes of the typical citizens of those countries who are trying to work hard to support their families, and yet have had their lives torn apart by war and poverty.  I believe that the life of a 10-Year-Old girl in Baghdad is equally as precious as the life of my 10-Year-Old girl here in California.  As it is said in the Bible, after all, "Treat thy neighbor as Thyself".

To sum up, we:

1. ...Need to realize that a murdered Syrian child should be as important to us all as a child who is murdered in Paris, or New York, or Moscow, or even Fresno, California (yes, even Fresno).

2. ...Need to do what any intelligent and experienced doctor would do, and look back on the fact that the treatment which we have been employing over the past 12 years has done nothing but cause the original problem to compound itself.

3. ...Need to come to terms with reality... that being that we need to admit that we have been creating many more multitudes of 'terrorists' than we have been killing or imprisoning.  Also, we should recognize the fact that we have set a poor example for any country who claims to be fair and just, being that we have made our own President the Judge, Jury, and Executioner of the people that we label as 'terrorists' around the world.  There is no way in Hell that we can claim to be delivering "Democracy" to the people of the Middle East when we simultaneously keep people in Guantanamo Bay under conditions which fly directly in the face of the morals and standards that we claim to uphold.

I could easily add another five or ten points to this list, but I'm tired.  Mind you, there will definitely be more to come.

/robinclimbsoffsoapbox