ratherastory: (Impala)
ratherastory ([personal profile] ratherastory) wrote2010-07-20 03:46 pm

Day 4: 30 Days of Supernatural

Day 04 - Your least favourite season

Oh, this is hard. There really isn't a season I didn't like.




Season 3 is maybe my least favourite, although it has some of my favourite episodes of the whole series. I think it's mostly due to the writers' strike truncating the season and making the season feel unbalanced, as though it's scrambling to figure itself out. A few characters got short-shrifted (Bela, notably, whom I didn't like but whom I think would have been far more interesting if she'd had the time to be fleshed out).

I also really didn't like "Long-Distance Call" and "Time Is On My Side." They're the only two episodes I won't rewatch unless I'm running through the whole season, and often enough I'll skip through most of them.

That being said, Season 3 also has "A Very Supernatural Christmas" and "Mystery Spot," and Katie Cassidy as Ruby, whom I loved.

30 Days of Supernatural!
Day 01 - Your favourite character
Day 02 - Your least favourite character
Day 03 - Your favourite season
Day 04 - Your least favourite season
Day 05 - Your favourite episode
Day 06 - Your least favourite episode
Day 07 - Your favourite Dean crying scene
Day 08 - Your favourite Sam crying scene
Day 09 - Your favourite Dean death scene
Day 10 - Your favourite Sam/other death scene
Day 11 - Your favourite quote
Day 12 - Your favourite funny scene
Day 13 - A scene that makes you sad/cry
Day 14 - A scene that makes you happy
Day 15 - A scene that makes you angry
Day 16 - An episode that scared you
Day 17 - Your favourite SPN friendship
Day 18 - Your favourite SPN romance
Day 19 - Your favourite SPN song
Day 20 - Your favourite recap
Day 21 - Your favourite character entrance
Day 22 - Your favourite minor character
Day 23 - The character that is most like you
Day 24 - An episode you wish never happened
Day 25 - Something that you wish happened but didn’t
Day 26 - Your favourite SPN fanvid
Day 27 - Your favourite season intro episode
Day 28 - Your favourite season finale
Day 29 - Your favourite SPN fanfic
Day 30 - Anything SPN related

[identity profile] claudiapriscus.livejournal.com 2010-07-20 08:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Season 3 is also my least favorite. It's just too damn depressing- which I know, I know, might sound a bit silly considering that the later seasons are hardly exercises in joy...but those at least made it *seem* like there was hope. Season 3 (and maybe this is because I saw it after getting hooked on season 4) seemed a little bleak. It seemed like it was saying there were only a few ways for it to go, and they'd all suck.

But as I said, maybe this is my love for season 4 coloring things. I mean, how awesome was Castiel in the beginning of season 4, and there was all that "good things do happen," even if it all later went to shit. And even there, there was Cas switching sides and (going into season 5) the hint that God himself brought Cas back and saved the boys... Perhaps I'm just an optimist, so when I don't know for sure it's all going to end badly, I tend to take a rosier view.
ext_14783: girl underwater (SPN - Sammy lost his shoe :()

[identity profile] lavinialavender.livejournal.com 2010-07-21 04:24 am (UTC)(link)
the later seasons are hardly exercises in joy
I just want to let you know how hard that made me laugh. I will be quoting. "Yeah, recent SPN seasons...are hardly exercises in joy."

[identity profile] claudiapriscus.livejournal.com 2010-07-21 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
It may have been a teensy bit of an understatement, I have to admit. :-P

[identity profile] hansons-angel.livejournal.com 2010-07-20 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)
It's also my "least" favorite -- but that's just because of the abrupt feeling to it. I'm like you -- I don't dislike any of the seasons (and I actually have S5 tied with S2 as my faves) and "No Rest For the Wicked," is one of my very favorite episodes of the series. I also really liked, "Jus in Bello," and "A Very Supernatural Christmas," a lot.

(BTW, I'm enjoying reading all your answers to these questions -- it's nice to keep Supernatural alive and well and fresh in our minds while on hiatus and in such a fun, positive way) : )

[identity profile] elsewhere-kels.livejournal.com 2010-07-20 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
lol It AMAZES me how many times you can watch the series over, judging from how many times you've talked about converting people into Supernatural fans - not that I don't love it myself but I can't imagine watching the same movie/tv episode more than, like, 4 times in one year.

&hearts How's everything going?

[identity profile] ratherastory.livejournal.com 2010-07-20 09:17 pm (UTC)(link)
*cough*

Yeah... I've never actually done that before this year, when I developed a major psychotic obsession with Supernatural.

I've rewatched Season 1 the most, probably twelve times in total. Mind you, a couple of those times was at work on a night shift, so I was doing other things while indoctrinating my willing victims. ;)

After that, I've watched the other seasons less, progressively. Season 2 I've probably watched 5-6 times, Season 3 maybe 3 or 4, same for Season 4. Season 5 I've re-watched once, but only halfway. I can't bring myself to relive the trauma just yet. :P

[identity profile] elsewhere-kels.livejournal.com 2010-07-21 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
Crazy Supernatural with its fan-sucking powers. =D
bellatemple: (SPN - Season 4 is Pynchon)

[personal profile] bellatemple 2010-07-20 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)
My least favorite episode of the whole series is in season 3, but if I had to pick, I think I'd go with five. Storytelling-wise, I just picked out so many issues with the later half of the season, and there were so many more episodes that made me angry on some level.

[identity profile] ratherastory.livejournal.com 2010-07-20 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)
See, I'm okay with an episode for making me angry, and I'm a little more forgiving with storytelling —gaps, I guess. Season 5 was a rollercoaster, emotionally speaking, whereas a lot of Season 3, while I enjoyed it, didn't stab me through the heart the way Season 5 did. I'd put Season 5 right behind 3, though, in terms of "least favourite."

Which episode is your least favourite? Inquiring minds want to know!
bellatemple: (Default)

[personal profile] bellatemple 2010-07-20 09:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Sin City. I can barely remember why, even, but that episode just left me completely and utterly cold. I tend to forget it exists, until I think of episodes that made me angry or that I had trouble with the storytelling on and then realize I can say "at least it wasn't 'Sin City'".

It's less a matter of gaps to me, on season five, and more of a matter of . . . just weak choices, imo. Weak enough to leave me distracted from the emotional thread they were trying to tell.

I found season 3 rather less disagreeable than most, it seems. Part of that might be that that's when I started watching regularly.

[identity profile] ratherastory.livejournal.com 2010-07-20 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I didn't find it disagreeable, just... unbalanced and awfully bland in places. I agree entirely with you about "Sin City."

I was also really disappointed with the premiere. I mean, the Seven Deadly Sins, and that's the best they could come up with? It was cute, but the promise of the episode's beginning just didn't pan out.

I'm willing to forgive a LOT for "Mystery Spot," though. :)

I'll also go right out on a limb and agree with you about the weak choices in Season 5. Not always, but in some really vital places the show left me scratching my head and wondering why they'd pulled that particular punch.
bellatemple: (Default)

[personal profile] bellatemple 2010-07-20 09:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I definitely agree with you on the season 3 premiere, but there are enough individual episodes of the season that I really, really love -- it's where they first started to really play with their format, and frankly, that's the stuff I adore -- and I honestly didn't find it that choppy. I do think Bela got the short shrift (I really liked her, and am so very, very alone in that), and I do think that they had trouble keeping an even tempo through out, what with the uncertainty of the show's status and the duration of the writer's strike, but I think they handled it very well, personally. There's only so long you can drag out the "will Sam save Dean from Hell?" question before people start banging their heads on things, anyway.

Season five has less individual episodes that make me go "yes, that". It has episodes that I started to say that on, and then went "wait, no", which drives me absolutely bonkers. And the finale was just so . . . lack-luster to me. They had the gun on stage, and not only did they not fire it, they threw it on the floor and kinda stomped on it for awhile, and the whole second half of the season seemed really rushed to me. More so than season three did. And they actually had a full staff and season for it.

[identity profile] claudiapriscus.livejournal.com 2010-07-20 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh, yes. Hmm.I'm going to have to reconsider. I think some part of me is still won over by how cool season five COULD have been- and I've just been repressing how very disappointing I found it. Especially the second half. I'm more forgiving of the first half because it did have some good episodes, and since it was the beginning, I was a little more willing to forgive it for not launching into a big honking (cohesive) apocalyptic narrative I was waiting for.

ETA: Yes (yes,amen,yes) to everything you just said here:
"Season five has less individual episodes that make me go "yes, that". It has episodes that I started to say that on, and then went "wait, no", which drives me absolutely bonkers. And the finale was just so . . . lack-luster to me. They had the gun on stage, and not only did they not fire it, they threw it on the floor and kinda stomped on it for awhile, and the whole second half of the season seemed really rushed to me. More so than season three did. And they actually had a full staff and season for it."
Edited 2010-07-20 23:48 (UTC)

[identity profile] primrose-1.livejournal.com 2010-07-20 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Agreed! I think maybe everyone would agree. They really needed a full season to build up the tension with Dean. I'm not a big fan of Sin City myself. I know what you mean about favorite episodes! It's like Buffy the Vampire slayer- season 6 was the worst, but there was the musical which was my all time number one favorite episode ever! Ah well.
ext_14783: girl underwater (SPN - Teenchesters)

[identity profile] lavinialavender.livejournal.com 2010-07-21 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
That being said, Season 3 also has "A Very Supernatural Christmas" and "Mystery Spot,"
Very, very true. Especially to the first. Definitely among my top five favorite episodes.

[identity profile] callistosh65.livejournal.com 2010-07-21 06:20 am (UTC)(link)
I'm another one who would pick season three as my least favourite. Though like you, it has two of my all time favourite episodes - the Christmas one and Mystery Spot. But overall, it just doesn't stab you through the heart, does it? ( nicely put:)) I remember being disappointed with the look of it apart from anything else. Right off the bat, the desaturated colours were gone, it rained less, and the whole thing suddenly whiffed of Studio Interference, especially with the glamorous add-ons of Ruby and Bela.

Undoubtedly affected by the writers strike, it is interesting to reflect on what it could have been if they'd had their full quota of episodes, and not had to send Dean to Hell. ( I remember Kripke saying in an interview that Sam was originally going to become S4 Sam in S3 by saving his brother, but at a terrible price).

And on aminor note, I HATED the kid who played Ben - the worst kind of overcooked child acting imho. Which does not bode well for me enjoying his presence in S6..::sigh::