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Master Fan
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 18,707
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oh wow, its a big news day with the Pilot. Not all of the news is good, critics are stupid, but im posting them all anyway so you can read. 
nytimes.com
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Unexplained Phenomena Lurk Behind New Shows
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
"Supernatural," on WB, is genuinely scary. But there are half a dozen other new dramas designed to make viewers run from the room screaming, including two about aliens from outer space, and at least one sea monster. There is even a remodeled "Night Stalker."
Could it be a symptom of our times? In an era plagued with man-made perils like global warming and biological terrorism, when even natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina seem compounded by human failings, perhaps we seek the comfort of a higher scapegoat- supernatural forces beyond our control and not our fault.
Nah. It's got to be because of "Lost." The ABC series about plane-crash survivors stuck on a haunted island was a huge success last season, and now every other network wants to follow suit. ABC is even hoping to find another "Lost" with "Invasion," a series about E.B.E.'s ("extraterrestrial biological entities") who disrupt life in Florida.
The scariest part of all these unexplained phenomena lurks behind the camera: there is nothing quite as alarming as the fear of failure. Television has always sought security in imitation; in this relentlessly competitive market of infinite digital cable and on-demand viewing, executives are as panicked as teenage campers in "Friday the 13th": at the first sight of salvation, they run for the escape hatch in terrorized droves.
Network jitters would also explain "Bones," a new Fox drama that has its premiere tonight. It too clings to proven formulas. A crime drama about a tough, beautiful anthropologist who helps the FBI solve homicides, "Bones" attaches the girl power of "Grey's Anatomy" to the high-tech forensics of "CSI." It's not nearly as snappy as the Fox drama that follows, "House," but it does give a woman the last word.
And the first: in the opening scene, the anthropologist's best friend flashes her pink lace bustier at an inattentive airport official to obtain arrival information. Just imagine what she would do for a pillow on Delta Air Lines.
The F.B.I. is useless at solving the kind of crimes committed on "Supernatural," at least until Quantico starts training paranormal pathologists. The premiere episode begins, very spookily, with the grotesque, inexplicable death of a young mother, and flashes forward to 2005 and her two grown sons, who have been raised by their grief-demented father to work as vigilante ghostbusters. (Their tools are a lot lower-tech than the proton gun, however: mostly handguns and sawed-off shotguns.)
The first half-hour of the pilot is quite effective: the camera angles, spooky music and jumpy sequences (whenever a character appears, it is sudden and startling) are as frightening as those found in any horror movie, with an added twist of suspense. Theatergoers can usually tell just from the previews whether they are paying to see Freddy Krueger or something closer to "The Sixth Sense." Horror is still a relatively rare genre on television, and viewers can never be quite sure how far a network and its censors will go.
Unfortunately, "Supernatural" shows its true colors too quickly. The trouble with ghost stories is that no matter how sophisticated the special effects, the depiction of numinous creatures is almost always pretty silly. Halfway through the pilot, "Supernatural" stops building suspense and turns predictable. The drama reverts to a WB family drama about the bonds between two mismatched brothers and their father. Sam (Jared Padalecki of "Gilmore Girls") wants to go to law school and lead a normal life. His older brother, Dean (Jensen Ackles of "Smallville), is still a phantom-hunter and a ne'er-do-well scamp. (When a Southern sheriff warns him he is in a heap of trouble, he replies, "Misdemeanor trouble or 'squeal like a pig' trouble?")
The stars are appealing WB veterans, but it is hard to believe that subsequent episodes will carry the same edge as the premiere. "Supernatural" is not "The Sixth Sense," it's "Ghostbusters' Creek."
"Bones" also tries to be unsettling - lots of decomposed bodies and severed, rotting skulls. Emily Deschanel ("Boogeyman") plays Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist with a pretty face and a tough-as-nails demeanor. When a stranger gets too close to her at the airport, she kickboxes him to the floor and pummels him with sarcasm. She works with a team of flaky, brilliant colleagues, including the loose-blouse best friend, Angela (Michaela Conlin).
Temperance has sexual tension with her contact at the F.B.I. special agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz of "Angel"), a former Army sniper who is the brawn to her brains. Tired of being left behind in the lab, Temperance demands to be Seeley's full partner in the field. He assents by saying, "We're Scully and Mulder."
He is referring to the partners on "The X-Files," but the allusion itself was a television tell. Characters on television increasingly reference old shows in a knowing way: on "Supernatural," Sam and a classmate joke about not growing up like the Bradys or the Huxtables. Such winking self-consciousness is a trend, a way of adding modern edge to old-fashioned dramas and sitcoms.
But it could also be a more primitive rite, like African tribesmen who eat the heart of valiant enemies in the hope of ingesting their courage, new shows nibble on the remains of old hits - "May their ratings be ours."
And that is creepy.
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From nydailynews.com
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Ghostly? It's closer to ghastly
Tuesday, September 13th, 2005
Supernatural
Tonight at 9, WB.
The casting of the new WB horror series "Supernatural" suggests that it's aimed at young teens.
That's because both of the male leads here played boyfriend heartthrobs on other WB shows.
It's good that "Supernatural" is aiming low, at least demographically - because it's hard to imagine an adult who would find it palatable, much less scary or enticing.
Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, who played supporting boyfriend roles on "Smallville" and "Gilmore Girls," respectively) star in "Supernatural" (tonight at 9) as brothers who, like their absent father, share a haunted past and a passion for ghostbusting.
They know all about melting down silver into bullets, and apocryphal ghost stories that turn out to be real - and even though one of them appears headed to law school, it's no surprise that their real destination, and destiny, is the open road.
That's no surprise, and neither is anything else in "Supernatural."
It's supposed to be a sort of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" crossed with "Route 66" - two buff boys on the road in a muscle car, chasing down the urban legend of the week.
In the pilot, the special effects are strong, and the woman-in-white ghost is very sexy - but everything else is leaden, predictable and, at times, unintentionally funny.
Some of the special effects in tonight's premiere borrow from the video-effect buzzing and fuzzing of Japanese horror films - but since there's no video element involved in the story, even that doesn't work, though it looks good.
As a "Men in Black"-type spoof, "Supernatural" might have stood a chance. But in trying to take itself so seriously, and scaring us, with characters and stories that are one-ply paper-thin at best, the only thing scary about this show so far is its incomprehensible self-confidence.
Meanwhile, the show's opening mystery, which crosses generations and involves these brothers in a quest for revenge and understanding, is less gripping than weird. Like the characters, it doesn't make much sense, isn't very believable, and looks great but doesn't demonstrate a lot of depth.
The overall traveling-ghost-hunter premise of the show, from executive producer Eric Kripke, keeps it from being a total tossaway, but future episodes will have to get much better before "Supernatural" gets satisfying, much less spooky. The male leads are outshone in every scene by their female co-stars - which is a bad sign, since subsequent episodes are following the men, not the ladies.
Graded on any unbiased scale, "Supernatural," for now, should be downgraded to "Natural." Nothing super about it.
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From sfgate.com
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FALL TV SEASON
Fox puts new flesh on 'CSI' formula; WB scares up some real fright in 'Supernatural'
- Tim Goodman
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Bones: drama, 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Fox
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Head Cases: dramedy, 9 p.m. Wednesdays, Fox
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Supernatural: drama, 9 p.m. Tuesdays, WB
Every network has or wants a "CSI." It's essential. It's like not having an iPod. You're so out if you don't. Completely uncool.
Which is odd, because this is the season where "CSI" isn't cool enough. Putting stuff under the microscope or hanging 20-to-life on some perp who left lip prints on a straw? That's like your dad's procedural series. Totally old school.
Which is probably why Fox's version of "CSI," called "Bones," has a woman flash her bra in the first few minutes for no good reason, then audaciously resurrects that Mulder and Scully smoldering workplace passion right under our noses -- on the network that made "The X Files" a hit. That's not recycling. That's composting.
But it seems to work. "Bones" takes the microscope one step further -- this time with a geeky-cool hologram that re-creates the faces of dead people (it seems very TV, but the producers say the technology exists and is in use). Even better, "Bones" eschews the ice-cold, work-first premise of "CSI" and has its two main protagonists, FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) and forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) nearly lock lips by the end of the first episode.
"Bones" is based on the real-life work of Kathy Reichs, who is a forensic anthropologist and also writes best-selling crime novels (as does the character in "Bones"). It's a cool enough series to dig up bones (some very, very old) and make a case out of them, but the decision here to add some spice and open the door to the lab for some fresh air was a good one. The trouble with "CSI" -- the entire franchise -- is you feel claustrophobic with all the crime lab nonsense. A few episodes of emotional tie-loosening would help lighten the impact. How many times are we going to see some limbless or stitched-up victim and not want a really perfect tequila after work to take the edge off?
In "Bones" there's a counter to all that white-coat seriousness. And it comes in the form of Boreanaz ("Angel," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), whose cops-not-scientists-solve-crimes shtick is layered nicely with some fast-talking jocularity. And instead of having Deschanel be his uptight foil, the producers let her be a little off-kilter -- nutty, feisty, blunt and pop-culture clueless. When her co-workers make glib mentions of actors or musicians, it goes right over her head. She's a wonk about bones. She's got no time for People magazine. It's an endearing combination, and Deschanel, who's believable either serious or perplexed -- and adorable in her quirkiness -- immediately becomes this series' most important ingredient.
Though Fox scores with "Bones" (a nice companion piece to "House"), it fails miserably with "Head Cases," a dramedy about two "crazy" lawyers. The normally infallible Adam Goldberg is saddled with a role here too broad for Robin Williams to pull off. He's a possibly brilliant lawyer overcome by severe bouts of manic anger and, well, TV weirdness. You can bet that advocacy groups for the mentally ill are going to be all over this one. But they needn't bother -- "Head Cases" will implode from its own dreadfulness faster than any boycott campaign can hurt it.
Goldberg is paired with Chris O'Donnell, who plays a top-notch, career-achieving lawyer who, thanks to an inept plot, bad writing and truncated pilot, has a nervous breakdown over almost nothing, which allows his medical guidance counselor to create this cliched legal-team looniness to help the common man.
The predictability and triteness of "Head Cases" make it difficult to type even a sentence in favor of any part of this series. Fox needs shock therapy on the second episode or no one in their right mind will watch a minute of this thing.
The WB has had a hard time of late getting much of anything started creatively, so when it leaps on the bandwagon of series that tap into unexplained phenomena, the potential disaster is nearly unimaginable. But "Supernatural" manages what few of this season's trendy phenomena series can't -- the drama immediately finds and establishes its identity, then tears off without looking back.
One of the better surprises this fall, "Supernatural" is more about horror than sci-fi or the merely unexplainable. While "The Night Stalker" falters badly on ABC, "Supernatural" knows what it is, what it wants to accomplish, and gets there in a sweet-looking package with a maximum number of spooky moments per hour.
Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, poster boys from WB hits "Smallville" and "Gilmore Girls," make the most of their star turn here, playing brothers raised in a kind of dangerously off-beat demon-hunter family who now troll the dark roads of rural America battling scary things of all shapes and sizes. This is no "Men In Black" for the "Dawson's Creek" set -- it takes the premise seriously. Dad is a ghost buster -- always has been. And mom, well, bad things happen to mom in the pilot, and if it doesn't scare you a helluva lot more than you thought it would, you're too jaded by half.
Ackles and Padalecki are good-looking, yes, get to drive a '67 Chevy and will undoubtedly run into a lot of really hot women in peril, but "Supernatural" works. It's just serious enough, just hip enough and, as advertised, more scary than imagined. Plus the premise has legs -- each episode is based on a documented urban legend in whatever city or town these guys drive into. For a network needing something else to work -- and something with a little less sap and more sting -- the WB may have found its next hit.
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From usatoday.com
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'Supernatural' frightens nicely
By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY
Feel like a good scare?
Demon hunters: Jensen Ackles as Dean, left, and Jared Padalecki as Sam tour the country in pursuit of some spooky times.
WB
Of all the season's new dark-arts adventures, WB's aptly if generically named Supernatural may be the simplest and the scariest. It's not an allegory; it's not a plea for spiritual uplift. It wants nothing more than to frighten you — and tonight, it does.
WB contract players Jared Padalecki (Gilmore Girls) and Jensen Ackles (Smallville) make the move to stardom in this "Route 666" as Sam and Dean Winchester, brothers touring the country in an old Chevy to hunt for ghosts, ghouls and evil urban legends. It's the family business, and it has been ever since some monster killed their mother while Sam (Padalecki) was a baby.
Sam doesn't remember what happened. Good thing, too, because it's pretty horrifying. Like other WB heroes before him, Sam's fondest wish is to throw off his demon-hunter destiny and live a normal life. His plan is derailed when Dean (Ackles) shows up at his door with a new mission. Seems Dad has gone missing while hunting the "woman in white," a bedraggled young woman who stands on the side of the road asking male drivers to take her home.
About the show
Supernatural
Fox, Tuesday, 9 ET/PT
* * * out of four
Well, yes: You know the drivers shouldn't do it, and you also know they will. But within those bounds, Supernatural does pull off a few surprises. Multiple things go bump in the night as the plot works its way to an ending that lives up to Dean's "no chick-flick moments."
Because this is a series, you also know the estranged brothers are going to rebond along the way, which they do without undue sentiment. Now and then, the show also pauses for comic relief — clumsily at times, because Ackles' comic touch is not yet as skillful as it needs to be. Too often when he's trying to be humorously annoying, he's simply annoying.
Overall, Padalecki and Ackles fit what you've come to expect from a WB teen star. It just would be nice if the network broke with expectations now and then — say, by building a show around someone who wasn't either young, pretty or white. As entertaining as Supernatural may be, it is another minority-free show on a network that is already TV's least diverse. And that's not good at all.
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From boston.com
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'Supernatural' goes south in a hurry
By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff | September 13, 2005
WB hunks are not a very elusive species. They're easily spotted flocking through prime time all week long, their shiny brown hair recognizable even to the untrained eye. With their silky-smooth voices, sensitive eyes, and brooding brows, they're among TV's most common birds, rivaling even the ubiquitous Bruckheimerian Rubber-Gloved Detective.
Two more WB hunks take a regular perch this week on ''Supernatural," beginning tonight at 9 on Channel 56. The new series stars a pair of WB grads, Jensen Ackles from ''Smallville" and Jared Padalecki from ''Gilmore Girls," as brothers who fight ghosts while trying to solve their mother's decades-old murder. True to their WB hunk roots, Ackles and Padalecki are generic cuties who hold their lips together tightly, except to utter the word ''Dude." And as such, they do very little to distinguish their show, which is as unimaginative as its title.
''Supernatural" aims for B horror-movie thrills, as the Winchester brothers comb the country chasing evil spirits in their 1967 Chevy Impala. Basically, Sam (Padalecki) has tried to escape the ghost-busting business of Dean (Ackles) and their dad, who devote their lives to solving ethereal mysteries. But tonight, after Dad goes missing, Sam agrees to leave his academic seclusion to help Dean. He gets sucked back in. Each week, the Winchesters will do grim battle with a different demon -- tonight, it's the bitter ghost of a woman in white -- while gathering little clues about their mother.
The first episode does contain one or two twists that are moderately creepy. But there's nothing about the central family story in ''Supernatural" or its bland actors that makes it addictive. It's horror rehash that never quite takes flight.
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From nowplayingmag.com
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Supernatural – “Pilot”
Contributed by Tony Whitt
Tuesday, 13 September 2005
When Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) was a baby, his mother was violently killed by a supernatural force. Her death drove his father, and eventually his older brother Dean (Jensen Ackles), to try to track down such supernatural evils. In time, Sam drifted away and tried to build a normal life. But now Dean has shown up to tell him that their father has vanished while on one of their “hunting trips,” and the boys must share the dangerous task of finding him again.
Despite the obvious sex appeal of its two leads, which should bring in the teenaged girl viewership (and about ten percent of the teenaged boys), Supernatural is nothing like the usual WB fare. It’s a lot like Fox’s fare used to be, though. Viewers might be reminded of a latter-day version of The X-Files in which everyone’s two favorite FBI agents have been reincarnated as two brothers, sans sexual tension. (In fact, there’s a “Mulder and Scully” reference in the very first episode, as if the series’ producers realize what a well-worn path they’re walking down and want to head off any comparisons at the pass.) If they’re not reminded of that series, they might be reminded of the “Freak of the Week” formula that Smallville all too easily fell into during its first and second seasons. Ackles’ recent sojourn on that series isn’t likely to help that particular comparison go away, and perhaps his casting is even meant to reinforce it. (If nothing else, he’s put to a damned sight better use here than he was as Lana Lang’s erstwhile boyfriend, and of all the current WB actors in the young talent pen, Ackles is the most deserving of a leading role.)
In other words, it’s a hard show to take on its own merits, but there’s enough that's new and interesting here placed beside elements that are comfortably familiar that it’s worth giving a shot. For one thing, even when he’s burdened with the overly expository dialogue that comprises his first scene with Ackles, Padalecki is immediately the sort of guy that audiences will identify with. The most interesting twist to his character is that, instead of fulfilling the Scully role of Doubting Thomas, Padalecki’s character doesn’t disbelieve in the supernatural – he simply doesn’t want to have anything to do with it, whether it killed his mother or not. It’s a risky position to play a sympathetic lead character from, but Padalecki appears to have the acting chops to pull it off.
This first episode might be a bit too familiar, especially for those of us who spent a good bit of our childhood in Appalachia: When he disappeared, Winchester Sr. was investigating a stretch of highway in a small town where unmarried men have been disappearing. Turns out the culprit in question is something posing as the good ol’ phantom hitchhiker, killing its victims rather than just scaring the beejesus out of them by showing up in their backseats. There’s more to it than that, of course, and again it’s familiar territory, but it’s not bad stuff for all that. There’s also good chemistry between Padalecki and Ackles, and the hints about all the things Sam has done before pursuing a normal life are tantalizing. But whether this series will be able to spin the boys’ quest for their father out of such investigations long enough to keep an audience is too soon to tell. B
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From aintitcool.com
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The Creator Of BOOGEYMAN Unleashes SUPERNATURAL!!
I am – Hercules!!
“Lost,” the most successful sci-fi series since “The Twilight Zone” (perhaps even the most successful sci-fi series ever), has emboldened the networks to greenlight an unprecedented number of genre series, everything from ABC’s “Invasion,” and “The Night Stalker” to CBS’ “Threshold” and “The Ghost Whisperer”) to NBC’s “Surface.”
The first to emerge is The WB’s “Supernatural,” an hourlong created by writer Eric Kripke (“Boogieman,” The WB’s “Tarzan”) about two brothers who take a cross-country road trip to solve their mother’s 20-year-old murder. It stars Jensen Ackles (“Dark Angel,” “Smallville”) and Jared Padalecki (“Gilmore Girls,” “House of Wax”).
I like the two lead actors, and director David Nutter brings some swell and shocking visuals to the pilot, but the characters often behave very differently than I would given the same circumstances, and the banter careens between unconvincing to wince-inducing.
But what matters Herc’s opinion? Variety says:
… perfectly serviceable if not particularly inspired … Still, Ackles in particular brings an easygoing charm and engaging wise-ass personality to the absurd notion of traveling the country with a trunk full of wooden stakes and holy water. …
The Hollywood Reporter says:
… It has been described as a cross between "Route 66" and "The X-Files." As descriptions go, that's not bad, but "Supernatural" is too complex and robust to be so easily categorized. It is as close as TV has come to importing the kind of horror associated with theatricals, but it combines those spine-tingling moments with camaraderie and mystery. Plus, it explores some intriguing and popular ghostly legends. … David Nutter, a veteran "X-Files" director and the go-to helmsman for many WB pilots ("Jack & Bobby," "Tarzan," "Smallville," "Roswell"), directed the pilot and dotted it with several edge-of-your-seat moments. Equally important, he blended these moments with other strong dramatic elements, including the reconciliation of the brothers and their constant struggles to investigate the paranormal while avoiding suspicious but invariably dull-witted local authorities. Maintaining that pace and tone, as well as some glorious special effects, will be a challenge every bit as great as defeating the weekly demonic forces.
TV Guide says:
… The “boo” moments are awesome. Like any shameless horror movie, Supernatural can be derivative, but like any enduring campfire yarn, it can be deliciously spine-tingling as well. …
USA Today gives it three stars (out of four) and says:
… It wants nothing more than to frighten you — and tonight, it does. … Multiple things go bump in the night as the plot works its way to an ending that lives up to Dean's "no chick-flick moments." Because this is a series, you also know the estranged brothers are going to rebond along the way, which they do without undue sentiment. Now and then, the show also pauses for comic relief — clumsily at times, because Ackles' comic touch is not yet as skillful as it needs to be. Too often when he's trying to be humorously annoying, he's simply annoying. …
The Washington Post says:
… does deliver genuine shocks and jolts, enough so that one might reasonably call it electrifying. Or maybe electrocuting -- an inarguably less enjoyable sensation. … There isn't much in "Supernatural" to engage viewers older than Sam and Dean, but it's certainly not the worst of the new troop of spookers. Dean may be an obnoxious boor, but he does get some of the better lines, as when Sam scoffingly remembers Dad long ago telling him not to be afraid of the dark. "Don't be afraid of the dark?" says Dean, who's now doing the scoffing. "Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark!"
The Newsday says:
…Spontaneous combustion, anyone? Gorgeous ghosts who put the pedal to the metal in sports cars? A trunk full of weapons and a wanderlust to kick some paranormal posterior? Have we got the show for you. "Supernatural" knows what it wants, and goes out and kills it. … Many plot points are preposterous. But then this is a show that only uses them to advance toward its next violent vision or moody view of our angsty stars. Did I mention they were hot? That's what counts, along with the pilot's zestful presentation of its far-out contrivances. You could do a lot worse among this fall's flock of fantasy shows that "Lost" wrought.
Herc’s rating for “Supernatural” 1.1?
**
The Hercules T. Strong Rating System:
***** better than we deserve
**** better than most motion pictures
*** actually worth your valuable time
** as horrible as most stuff on TV
* makes you quietly pray for bulletins
9 p.m. Tuesday. The WB.
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