Next Impressions: Supernatural / Smallville

There is nothing I hate more than cliffhangers. Yeah they are interesting the week after the season premiere and the week before the next season’s premiere, but the waiting in-between is just annoying. And there was no more annoying cliffhanger in recent memory than that of Supernatural. The season finally was going along; looking like the Winchester family was going to get their revenge on the shiny demon that took thee life of the family matriarch (as well of one’s girlfriend) only for it to get away in the last minute and causing a car crash leaving the viewers wonder all summer which of the protagonist would survive. After spending all season watching the boys hunt down the shiny demon only to fail left such a bad taste in my mouth I was ready to jump ship, and would have had Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (See my First Impressions) stayed at the originally announced timeslot against Supernatural. But since Studio 60 moved to Mondays and nothing else worth watching at that timeslot (well aside from watching what I tape out of Survivor, Smallville, and My Name Is Earl) I decided to give it another chance.

The season naturally started where the show left off at the scene of the accident with Sam being the lone conscious one. Apparently the demon that hit them wasn’t the Big Bad anyways. Oh well. At the hospital, Daddy dearest also makes it out okay, but Dean got hit so hard by the truck, it knocked his soul out of his body which gave him the opportunity to hunt down death that borderlined on complete rip-off of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode where Buffy spent the night in the hospital. At least Supernatual had the sense to make death extremely hot. I don’t think I’d give up much of a fight if death looked like that when it was my time to go.

Back on the corporeal plain, Sam and daddy fight to save Dean in their own ways, with daddy being the one that is able to do so as he surprisingly makes a deal with a devil. Not surprisingly the other thing the demon asked for asides from the colt and the final bullet was for his own life. We will have to see his he had something else up his sleeve that the shiny demon wasn’t expecting plus there were his last words he whispered to Dean. The shiny demon said that daddy dearest knew something about Sam that he didn’t tell him, was that what he told Dean? I’m sure we’ll have to wait awhile to find out.

Verdict: Buffy rip-offs asides, the show looks to be on track with daddy gone, although did I see killer clowns in the preview for next week? Oh and some news for Veronica Mars fans, you may want to turn into the killer clown episode next week as my sources tell me none other than the dearly departed Meg Manning will make an appearance (hopefully not as a killer clown). If she sticks around than I will undoubtedly will too, and let’s face it, the show could benefit from more familiar faces from week to week.


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Speaking of cliffhangers, none are more dramatic than those of Smallville. At the end of every season, all the townspeople of the farm town are in imminent danger, yet come the following year, everything is back to normal by the start of the second episode. We left off with Zod taking over Lex’s body with Lana at his side, Lionel and Chloe were being trampled in a riot after being pulled out of his limousine, Lois and Martha were in a plane that was going down somewhere in the artic, and Clark was banished to the Phantom Zone. Naturally by the end of the episode, Clark, Lois, and Martha made it back to Smallville, Zod was cast out of Lex’s body, Lionel and Chloe made it out with barely a scratched, and Lana did her usual stand around and look hot thing, not that there is anything wrong with that.

The big new of the season was Lois finally got rid of those tacky bangs with the ugly highlights. I remember seeing her on the CW promo, not recognizing her, and thinking “she must be part of the new show’s cast” only to realize it was her since she was next to Clark. In other big new, Troy Vandergraff (looks like next Thursday will be a Veronica Mars day on the CW) show up as Jimmy Olsen and somehow has the ability to make Chloe totally forget about the future Superman. But how soon will it be until Jimmy starts pining after Lois which we all know will become the basis of the Jimmy Olsen's Blues.

Verdict: Just your typical Smallville premiere, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I got to wonder what is left for Lana this season. I still think her death will be the straw that finally turns Lex into the supervillian we all know he will become. As for the rest of the season, it just a matter of guess which superpowers Clark discovers and which superfriends will show up next (that’s if you don’t know already).

On a related note, nowhere on the CW Thursday did I see one of the revolutionary commercial “pods”. Did they give up on them already or are they just on certain days?