Ok I’m gonna slide this in there just before I wax poetic about the Friday panels day 1 of ChiCon because I truly think there is a little unnecessary tone of condescension almost…or more like judgmental trend going on in fandom right now with regards to 8x04 reactions.
You know what if you loved it GREAT! That is fantastic and I am very happy for you. In fact I’m a little envious because it would obviously be more preferable to be in awe and completely in love with the episode than not. I am glad that the fandom is divided into such polar opposites with this and that we have people who absolutely love it.
But fandom needs to can the negativity towards those who didn’t like it. I’m not changing my mind on that one. I’ve watched it twice and still not feeling a whole lot of love for it. I don’t hate it but then I have never hated a whole entire episode before.
The hand cam perspective has been done before in numerous genres including in Supernatural in Ghostfacers. And I don’t mind that it got used again – Chronicle showed me that it does work and can be enjoyed and I definitely had no issues with it and felt that the hand cam aspect was as usual done very competently. It wasn’t Sam and Dean character love that blinded me in this episode. I can very much enjoy Sam and Dean Lite episodes and have done so in previous seasons.
I just thought the story and character development was poor. The acting was adequate, the production values were, as usual with this high caliber show, impeccable. I’m sorry it did Serge’s head in with the lighting but it was very well shot. I did not connect with the characters and thought the story devices/major plot were not strong enough to carry off the absence of the main characters. That’s all. I’m not being a whiny-butthurt-all-I-ever-wanna-see-is-Sam-and-Dean-MOTW-type-stories fan. Despite what the lovers of this episode may try to accuse me of. The story did not grab me enough and the characters did not make me invest in their outcomes enough to give a crap about what happened to them. And I’m not used to that in my show so yeah, I’m gonna talk about it. Got my hubby to watch and his unfettered average viewer response was – "It wasn’t bad, it was an okay MOTW episode." Which is pretty much my response minus the I expect more though from my show.
And on that note I’d also like to point out that James Patrick Stuart is a huge fan of the show and has been watching Season 8 closely and was also very VERY luke warm towards this episode. He wasn’t impressed by Carver’s choices on this but by the same token he does believe he’s definitely set some very intriguing and engaging story arcs up for the season and he definitely wants to see where it goes.
So moving onto Chicago Con's Friday Panels
Kim Rhodes - 5 out of 5 stars
Rachel Miner - 3 out of 5 stars
Gabriel Tigerman - 4 out of 5 stars
James Patrick Stuart - 5 out of 5 stars
You know Rachel could totally be a 4 but sadly for her she was suffering quite badly from a head cold/type of flu thing and I do think this probably effected that whole PIZAZZ factor of her panel. Also combined with it being her first time at a US Creation Spn Con and her being quite a young actress I think this probably wasn't her at her best :) But she's a very lovely person, as nice as nice can be and I really wish her well in her career just not on my show ;) LOL! Honestly her Meg portrayal has grated on me and always will because unlike Gen who I feel did a good job with the new Ruby (took me a while to warm up to it but she got me in the end) I have never felt any kind of sympathy for this Meg - she's not doing a bad job I'm sure it's just not an acting style that connects with me.
Kim was her usual bouncy awesome self, tinged with a few nerves at the beginning you could see her visibly getting more comfortable and relaxed and still ever more excitable as the panel went on, she spoke of many things....motherhood (my question), skill she would most like to have in real life that she has acquired as an actress (shotgun handling), Richard Speight giving her all of 3 days to get a Halloween costume organised, using her Mom voice, her favourite scenes, her favourite music, her clumsiness, her issues with the bucket of cleaning fluid in the scenes in Slash Fiction, Jensen's mouth etc etc Very entertaining, full of laughs, frequent curse words, having to write excuses because her blog has now been blacklisted as porn on several work/government type computers, she likes to talk orgasms and advice there's not much she can do about that. I gave her a book in the autographs - it's called Unsaid and yes it's about animals so of course she started to well up there and then! OMG! Did not wanna make her cry right then! Sheesh! I did tell her it would make her cry though but that it was a good cry - cathartic and all. I think she and I are very much on the same level of empathy when it comes to our animals.
Gabriel Tigerman was adorably funny and very entertaining as well...even though I have head pretty much all his stories before by now it's great being a part of the group that is hearing them for the first time. We had the Roadtrip story, he spoke of his fanboy love for Michael C Hall, his complete obsession with The Walking Dead - but death to you if you spoil him for he has only just finished S2. He was delighted to be informed about Matt Cohen's recent propensity to dress up as a transgendered cowgirl and was outraged that Matt had not informed him of such photos out there, he spoke of Hard Crime and how it might be a while before we see the fruits of that as they actually are waiting on a guy who worked on Avatar to help with the post production of it...he's filmed a Hallmark Christmas movie called Naughty or Nice and it felt like a Supernatural get together as Danneel Ackles is in it, along with a few other ex Spn guest stars and it was directed by the guy who directed Ten Inch Here, he spoke of Horse sized Ducks being terrifying but that he would rather just kill one of those rather than hundreds of tiny evil ducks - but that a Horse Sized Duck would be an excellent Patronus for someone. All in all it was good times.
James Patrick Stuart has been in the business of acting and showbiz since he was 11 years old. The man is a veteran and looks very well indeed for it. This was only his 2nd con he'd ever been invited to in the US in 32 years he said. His first one I think was for a little show he was in at age 11 called Galactica 1980 and he attended a Con for that show so Supernatural was the first con he'd done in the US since. He came on and you could tell this was a guy with a propensity for oratory on much the same level of competency as Mark Sheppard. In fact he spoke of Mark very early on saying how he has great respect for him and spoke highly of him and yet he doesn't have a crush on him despite Sheppard's assertions to the contrary! He spoke o his first meeting with Mark, his work on All my Children, a movie he's very proud of that he's just finished called American Gandhi, his voice over work, his charaterisation of Dick Roman, his two kids, his upbringing, his political preferences, his thoughts on the show and many many other things often interpsersed with his impressions of people he has met and respected and gained a lot from as well as his Penguins of Madagascar voices. He does British accents perfectly and is quite the ham. I found him to be articulate, animated, engaging to listen to and I would LOVE to see him on stage with Mark S and Richard S. I asked a couple of questions - one about his entrance songs (both his and Dick Romans) and he put his Dick Roman teeth back in and played a couple things off his phone which I actually have no idea what songs they were so I'm hoping to sound hound them if the video quality is good enough on YouTube (not that I vidded I just photoed) also which cast members he'd like with him to win at a Quiz night - Mark S, Misha and realising he'd painted himself into a corner with the Js he went with Jim Beaver LOL! He's a great panellist and I hope he gets invited to future Cons - he doesn't pull his punches and is intrigued with the explosion of social networking (speaks of how it hurts sometimes to see instantaneous sometimes highly critical feedback of your work on Twitter!) and is an all round charismatic, pretty handsome guy (way more handsome than Dick Roman! he's also a huge fan of the Dick jokes).
Eta: Thanks to the comments below - I just clarified the Con debuts of JPS and Rachel to the USA.