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Supernatural and the Baywatch Effect
(Note on spoilers- teeny spoilers if you've never seen any Supernatural. Also, if you have seen all of it, please bear in mind that I haven't, so no spoilers for me please. No spoilers for Baywatch, unless you are unaware of the boobie content ;p)
My lovely boyfriend kindly bought me series 1 of Supernatural on dvd for my birthday. It’s a series I’ve been keen to catch up with, having been tantalized by all manner of bizarre confessions on Fandom Secrets and the tiny bits of it I’d managed to see on ITV 2 or 3 or whatever it was (never on at a reasonable or regular time, it seemed). We’re currently slap bang in the middle of the first series, where the intrigue and clues over the main story arc are coming thick and fast.
I am enjoying it very much. As Marty has said, it’s a bit of a Monster of the Week show, but that was when I enjoyed the X-Files the most, and Supernatural certainly owes a lot to Mulder and Scully (aside from the references to the show, of course- Cigerette Smoking Man was in the last episode!). Most episodes follow a pattern; something nasty happens somewhere, Sam and Dean find some tenuous reason to investigate, Dean tells an outrageous lie (that normally backfires) in order to win over the authorities/hot blond woman who is inexplicably involved, the brothers do a bit soul searching, nasty thing is defeated, hot blond woman inexplicably fails to get off with either brother, brothers do a bit more rueful bonding. Nothing wrong with any of that, quite frankly.
I like Dean the best, closely followed by the car, closely followed by the dad, and then Sam sneaks in there somewhere with his Kevin Bacon nose. I like the references to geeky things, and the hints at a dark being manipulating the events from afar, and the likeable and chemistry laden bromance at the heart of it all (sadly, I don’t believe they’re sleeping with each other, despite all the support at Fandom Secrets). One thing I did notice is that Supernatural appears, so far, to be subject to the Baywatch Effect.
The vast majority of women in the Supernatural universe are leggy and blond, with long flowing tresses. They are all kind of interchangeable, but that’s almost fair enough; the show already has two very pretty male leads, so they have to balance things out with some eye candy for the boys, no doubt. This is so prevalent though, that as soon as a woman with short hair turns up, you know instantly that they will either be dead in the next ten minutes, or reveal themselves to be evil.
I call this the Baywatch Effect, because Baywatch sort of had the same deal. I was watching Baywatch one afternoon (you’re totally allowed to watch it ironically, especially if you’re a girl) and I noted the female character with short hair and a flat chest. I joked at the time that she was clearly going to cop it before the end of the episode- how could she survive amongst the mountainous boobies and cascading golden hair that the camera was much more interested in filming? To my own slight surprise, she did indeed die in the following thirty minutes, and big bossomed ladies mourned her loss (at least she wasn’t evil).
The last episode of Supernatural featured two young women with short hair. The first, who had a dark bob rather like my own, died horribly in the first ten minutes, and the second, who had a blond pixie cut, was evil- I called both of them, thanks to the Baywatch Effect.
This isn’t a criticism of the show at all, and I’ve certainly not seen enough of it to say whether the Baywatch Effect will last throughout its entire run. I live in hope that a lady with short, funky hair and possibly even piercings of some kind will reveal herself to be super capable of running away from the monsters, or even better, kicking them in the face and running away. We shall see.
My lovely boyfriend kindly bought me series 1 of Supernatural on dvd for my birthday. It’s a series I’ve been keen to catch up with, having been tantalized by all manner of bizarre confessions on Fandom Secrets and the tiny bits of it I’d managed to see on ITV 2 or 3 or whatever it was (never on at a reasonable or regular time, it seemed). We’re currently slap bang in the middle of the first series, where the intrigue and clues over the main story arc are coming thick and fast.
I am enjoying it very much. As Marty has said, it’s a bit of a Monster of the Week show, but that was when I enjoyed the X-Files the most, and Supernatural certainly owes a lot to Mulder and Scully (aside from the references to the show, of course- Cigerette Smoking Man was in the last episode!). Most episodes follow a pattern; something nasty happens somewhere, Sam and Dean find some tenuous reason to investigate, Dean tells an outrageous lie (that normally backfires) in order to win over the authorities/hot blond woman who is inexplicably involved, the brothers do a bit soul searching, nasty thing is defeated, hot blond woman inexplicably fails to get off with either brother, brothers do a bit more rueful bonding. Nothing wrong with any of that, quite frankly.
I like Dean the best, closely followed by the car, closely followed by the dad, and then Sam sneaks in there somewhere with his Kevin Bacon nose. I like the references to geeky things, and the hints at a dark being manipulating the events from afar, and the likeable and chemistry laden bromance at the heart of it all (sadly, I don’t believe they’re sleeping with each other, despite all the support at Fandom Secrets). One thing I did notice is that Supernatural appears, so far, to be subject to the Baywatch Effect.
The vast majority of women in the Supernatural universe are leggy and blond, with long flowing tresses. They are all kind of interchangeable, but that’s almost fair enough; the show already has two very pretty male leads, so they have to balance things out with some eye candy for the boys, no doubt. This is so prevalent though, that as soon as a woman with short hair turns up, you know instantly that they will either be dead in the next ten minutes, or reveal themselves to be evil.
I call this the Baywatch Effect, because Baywatch sort of had the same deal. I was watching Baywatch one afternoon (you’re totally allowed to watch it ironically, especially if you’re a girl) and I noted the female character with short hair and a flat chest. I joked at the time that she was clearly going to cop it before the end of the episode- how could she survive amongst the mountainous boobies and cascading golden hair that the camera was much more interested in filming? To my own slight surprise, she did indeed die in the following thirty minutes, and big bossomed ladies mourned her loss (at least she wasn’t evil).
The last episode of Supernatural featured two young women with short hair. The first, who had a dark bob rather like my own, died horribly in the first ten minutes, and the second, who had a blond pixie cut, was evil- I called both of them, thanks to the Baywatch Effect.
This isn’t a criticism of the show at all, and I’ve certainly not seen enough of it to say whether the Baywatch Effect will last throughout its entire run. I live in hope that a lady with short, funky hair and possibly even piercings of some kind will reveal herself to be super capable of running away from the monsters, or even better, kicking them in the face and running away. We shall see.
Three
Ooo, I've been sitting a bit funny and my leg's gone a bit achey. Ow.In the spirit of my aching self, I feel incapable of writing a comprehensible blog today, so instead I think I will make a small collection of thoughts. Sorry.1) Chris Moyles- I do not like him. A very brief note, but jesus christ, have you listened to Radio 1 in the mornings lately? I had the misfortune to do so, because I had grown so sick of the appalling fetid-brained sock-people that present breakfast tv and decided to try the radio. I should have known that Radio 1 was not for me; Radio 4 is my natural home, and I shall never leave it again. The Chris Moyles Breakfast radio show is essentially an hour (how long does it go on for? I've no clue. How could I possibly find out without wanting to end it all?) where Chris Moyles makes vague references to something funny he said down the pub last night, while a gang of sycophantic jibberers squeel themselves silly about how fucking funny he is. Underneath it all, a constant jingle plays, like we're all having a fucking jolly time, because Chris Moyles is so fucking funny. Christ.2) I watched around half an episode of Supernatural last night. This is a series I've utterly failed to get into, mainly because it's shown in a fairly random fashion late night on ITV2 (I think) and may turn up on any night, and at any time. I've always been a little intrigued, mainly due to its huge following on fandomsecrets, from which I have learned all sorts of interesting facts about the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean. Mainly, that if they had sex it would apparently be really, really hot.
So I finally saw some of it and was rather disappointed. To be fair, I'm coming rather late to the party, and my paltry plot knowledge gleaned from poorly constructed jpegs containing such wisdom as "I would hit that!" and "Ruby sucks!" was hardly likely to give me the best preparation. But still. What mainly happened was a number of devastatingly attractive people hung around looking devastatingly attractive, whilst giving the sort of moody glances that indicate rumpy pumpy might be on the cards at any moment. True, there was a woman there in a mental institution who could hear the voices of angels and demons, but even she was distractingly beautiful. Despite being loopy, she still apparently had time to nip out and get her hair dyed "Mystic Plum". Oh, someone had a nosebleed too, and someone tried to stab someone else. But that was largely it. And not once did those two brothers have sex. Disappointing.3) Fantasy trilogies: I am in the middle of one at the moment. This is rare for me, because the sort of fantasy that comes in trilogies (and higher numbers) is normally the sort of fantasy I'm rubbish at finishing. No reflection on the books themselves; I still love sword and sorcery fantasy and all it is and all it stands for. When I was a kid I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings, but since then I think my attention span has shrunk, and proper po-faced fantasy has me running for something a bit more funky, with a little more humour in it; The Lies of Locke Lamora, for example, or The Book of Lost Things.
So the Trilogy I am currently slogging through? Robin Hobb's Soldier's Son sequence. And I am enjoying it; I'm just not sure I can tell you why. The set up is very similar to her previous series, the Assassin's Apprentice (which I loved) where a young male character grows up with an unwanted magical "gift", has all sorts of shit happen to him because of it, and generally has a fairly rotten time. The AA series had dragons and pirates going for it, and intrigue and castles, but Soldier's Son... well. It has the army. Uh. And spotty magical people. And stately balls (ahem). And the most interesting thing to happen so far happened in the first 100 pages, which is a little annoying when you've read around 800 pages so far.
But, it is a testament to Hobb's writing that she can take the pace this slow, have no dragons in it and still have me balancing the book on the washing machine while I try to turn the burger's over one handed. The woman writes characters you grow to love, and you learn a lot of patience that way.
So I finally saw some of it and was rather disappointed. To be fair, I'm coming rather late to the party, and my paltry plot knowledge gleaned from poorly constructed jpegs containing such wisdom as "I would hit that!" and "Ruby sucks!" was hardly likely to give me the best preparation. But still. What mainly happened was a number of devastatingly attractive people hung around looking devastatingly attractive, whilst giving the sort of moody glances that indicate rumpy pumpy might be on the cards at any moment. True, there was a woman there in a mental institution who could hear the voices of angels and demons, but even she was distractingly beautiful. Despite being loopy, she still apparently had time to nip out and get her hair dyed "Mystic Plum". Oh, someone had a nosebleed too, and someone tried to stab someone else. But that was largely it. And not once did those two brothers have sex. Disappointing.3) Fantasy trilogies: I am in the middle of one at the moment. This is rare for me, because the sort of fantasy that comes in trilogies (and higher numbers) is normally the sort of fantasy I'm rubbish at finishing. No reflection on the books themselves; I still love sword and sorcery fantasy and all it is and all it stands for. When I was a kid I was obsessed with The Lord of the Rings, but since then I think my attention span has shrunk, and proper po-faced fantasy has me running for something a bit more funky, with a little more humour in it; The Lies of Locke Lamora, for example, or The Book of Lost Things.
So the Trilogy I am currently slogging through? Robin Hobb's Soldier's Son sequence. And I am enjoying it; I'm just not sure I can tell you why. The set up is very similar to her previous series, the Assassin's Apprentice (which I loved) where a young male character grows up with an unwanted magical "gift", has all sorts of shit happen to him because of it, and generally has a fairly rotten time. The AA series had dragons and pirates going for it, and intrigue and castles, but Soldier's Son... well. It has the army. Uh. And spotty magical people. And stately balls (ahem). And the most interesting thing to happen so far happened in the first 100 pages, which is a little annoying when you've read around 800 pages so far.
But, it is a testament to Hobb's writing that she can take the pace this slow, have no dragons in it and still have me balancing the book on the washing machine while I try to turn the burger's over one handed. The woman writes characters you grow to love, and you learn a lot of patience that way.
