Monday

8 – Chuck
9 – Trauma (March
10 – Law & Order (March 1 with two hour episode at 9)

Tuesday

8 – The Biggest Loser
10 - Parenthood (March 2)

Wednesday

8 – Mercy
9 – Law & Order: SVU (encores; March 3)
10 – Law & Order: SVU (new episodes; March 3)

Thursday

8 – Community
8:30 – Parks & Recreation
9 – The Office
9:30 – 30 Rock
10:00 – The Marriage Ref (March 4, premieres Sunday 2/28)

Friday

8 – Who Do You Think You Are? (March 5); Friday Night Lights (April 30)
9 – Dateline NBC (March 5)

Saturday

8 – The Biggest Loser (encores)
9 – Law & Order (encores)
10 – Law & Order: SVU (encores)

Sunday

7 – Dateline NBC
8 – Minute to Win It (March 14)
9 – Celebrity Apprentice (March 14)

Thoughts: Well, at least they didn’t rename “The Biggest Loser”  “The Biggest Loser: TBL.”  Given the sad state the network is in, this is probably the best they could do.  Pretty pathetic that instead of developing new hit shows to replace “Friends” and “Seinfeld” we’re not left with reality shows from Jerry Seinfeld (”Marriage Ref”) and Lisa Kudrow (”Who Do You Think You Are?”)  I’m glad to see “Parenthood” is being propped up by “The Biggest Loser,” I’ve been looking forward to it.   Good news for “Chuck,” after encouraging ratings for the first couple of episodes, and given the sorry state of the network, it would seem a shoo-in for next fall at this point.

Following last week’s announcement that NBC would be abandoning its catastrophic decision to strip “The Jay Leno Show” in primetime after only a few months due to overwhelming pressure from its affiliates and the subsequent decision to move Leno back to 11:35, the big question mark has been what will Conan O’Brien do?  NBC seemed to make it clear that they wanted to move “The Tonight Show w/ Conan O’Brien” to 12:05, following Leno’s half hour show which would now air at 11:35.  Whether that is true or a load of peacock crap, we may never know.  Perhaps NBC did want this overcrowded late night menu.  Or, more likely, they wanted to push Conan aside and put Leno back in place on “The Tonight Show.”  Either way, the whole thing stinks.  As a fan of Conan, Jay, and Dave, I just think the whole thing stinks and it was yet another lose-lose situation created by the wrath of Jeff Zucker

Here is the official statement released from Conan O’Brien:

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

Yours,

Conan

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SECOND BOOK FROM RICHARD CASTLE – STAR OF ABC’S “CASTLE” -
PLANNED FOR RELEASE SEPTEMBER 2010

HEAT WAVE by Richard Castle, star of the hit ABC series “Castle” (Mondays, 10:00-11:00 p.m., ET), has been a successful cross-platform collaboration between ABC and Hyperion. Published at the end of September 2009, HEAT WAVE has spent 14 weeks on the New York Times Hardcover bestsellers list, currently holding the #32 position for Sunday, January 17, 2010. Hyperion has gone back to press eight times and now has over 170,000 copies in print. With this great success, a second book from Richard Castle will be published at the end of September 2010.

HEAT WAVE is Hyperion’s #2 bestselling ebook for 2009, surpassed only by “The Last Lecture.” It is also Hyperion’s #5 Kindle bestseller for the year. The free chapters of HEAT WAVE offered on ABC.com have been downloaded almost 100,000 times since the first chapter posted in August 2009. HEAT WAVE will be released as a mass market paperback edition in August 2010.

UNTITLED CASTLE BOOK 2 by Richard Castle –
In the sequel to HEAT WAVE, Castle’s new thrilling mystery continues the story of NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat. Tough, sexy, professional, Nikki Heat carries a passion for justice as she leads one of New York City’s top homicide squads. In what’s sure to be another smash sensation by this blockbuster author, readers will once again follow Nikki Heat and hotshot reporter Jameson Rook as they trade barbs and innuendos, all while on the trail of a murderer!

For more information on “Castle,” visit ABC.com

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A nice show of confidence for those sitcoms.  Personally ecstatic about “Modern Family,” which is my favorite new show of the season.  “Cougar Town” is growing on me, meanwhile “The Middle” dropped off my DVR list faster than “Hank,” and that’s saying something.

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CBS Daytime president Barbara Bloom says on the CBS daytime website, “It’s extremely difficult to say good-bye to a long-running series that’s been close to our hearts for so long.  The almanacs will show AS THE WORLD TURNS as a pioneer of the format, a hallmark for quality with its numerous Emmy’s, the launching pad for many television and film stars and a daytime ratings powerhouse for parts of three decades. But, the true legacy of AS THE WORLD TURNS will be the fictional characters and stories of a small Midwest town that resonated every day with millions of viewers over multiple generations, becoming a treasured daytime institution in the process. We thank our partners at Procter & Gamble for the privilege of hosting this beloved series…the actors, writers, producers and crew who worked so hard and shared their amazing talents to bring this series to life…and, of course, the viewers who shared the journey on our network.”

In a statement on the the CBS Soaps in Depth website, Brian T. Cahill, senior vice president and managing director of TeleNext Media, Inc promises, “We are proactively seeking a new outlet to carry the show, and we are open to exploring innovative formats and relationships that will enable the future success of ATWT.”

Ask GL fans how that search worked out for them.  There were rumors, how true they may or may not have been we’ll never know, that GL was on the verge of being saved by Lifetime. Yesterday in his Soapgeist for TV Guide Canada, Nelson Branco reported that a former GL director told him had GL been canceled a month earlier, a deal could have been worked out.  “The main problem was that Lifetime had already cemented their fall lineup, but they wanted it.”  The following is mostly dreaming on my part, but if Lifetime truthfully wanted GL and if the welcome mat could possibly be extended to ATWT, how about a sort of soap hybrid at the very least?  GL ended with a flashforward of one year, and ATWT will be wrapping up at that one year mark.  Just saying…

I actually started watching ATWT earlier this summer, in part because I’m a glutton for punishment at the time of GL’s demise, ATWT was rumored to be next to go; and in part because I wanted to see Lynn Herring who played Lucy Coe on Port Charles/General Hospital. Despite the fact that I’m a newbie to this show in particular, I’m a soap fan, and I saw PC through from day one through its final episode, and I watched Sunset Beach end earlier as well.  Given that these shows air day in and day out, losing one isn’t easy.  Making it even harder to swallow, when these shows drop, they aren’t being replaced with new soaps:  When they’re gone, they’re gone.  Rumors that One Life to Live is next to go may or may not prove to be true, but the sad reality is, come next June when ATWT wraps, OLTL will be the last soap standing in New York City.

In the meantime, let’s take a minute to remember ATWT and the history that came with it.  By the time it leaves the airwaves, it will have spanned 54 years and over 13,000 episodes.   James Earl Jones, Meg Ryan, and Parker Posey, among others all appeared on the soap in the past.  More importantly, a number of veterans continue to on the show to this day, Eileen Fulton and Don Hastings have both appeared on the show as Lisa Grimaldi and Dr. Bob Hughes for 49 years.  But it’s Helen Wagner, the last remaining original cast member who’s Nancy Hughes spoke the first words that launched the show back in 1956.  Hopefully if those exhaustive efforts to save the show don’t pan out, she’ll be allowed to bring the World to a halt in 2010.

The third time is hopefully the charm for “Jericho,” which has risen yet again.

After being so rudely interrupted by an extended mid-season hiatus and two cancellations, “Jericho” is back once more, this time as a comic book series from Devil’s Due Publishing.  Make no mistake: This is an official season three, written by the entire creative team behind the TV series, including Jon Turtletaub and Carol Barbee.  If you watched the show during its initial run on CBS, this comic book is very much worth a look.  I will avoid spoilers in this article, but I can say that having read the first issue, you will easily be absorbed right back into the action of “Jericho” as though it never left.  No, it’s not the same as a TV series, and personally I am not a comic book reader, so I went into this with the mindset that it wouldn’t be as good as having it back as a TV series, but I wanted to see how the story would have continued.  It didn’t hurt going into it knowing that the entire creative force behind the show was involved.

Last month, Dan Shotz, a “Jericho” producer who frequently appeared on Shaun Daily’s “TV Talk” program to discuss the comic alongside Devil’s Due Publishing’s Josh Blaylock to discuss what season three had in store.  Dan Shotz talked about “Jericho” with a level of enthusiasm that helped to ease the transition from television to comic book.  He emphasized that the writers and producers were part of the development and production process of the comic from top to bottom and it wasn’t merely a case of them handing the story off to a publisher to do as they wished.  He said they provided the artist with a lot of pictures of the sets so that the buildings, streets, homes, etc. would look as they did on the show.  He said that while the bulk of the action would involve Jake and Hawkins, as the show itself did, all of our favorite characters would be included in the comic series at some point.  All of the actors signed off on allowing their likeness to be used, so everyone from Jake and Hawkins to officers Jimmy and Bill will be drawn to the actors’ likeness.  Aside from our old favorites, a new family member will be introduced in season three, as well as a new villain.

As for more live action “Jericho,” Dan commented on the rumors of a future movie as well.  He said that’s a goal, and that they are in early stages or pre-production, and that financing is the biggest obstacle.  Obviously, if the comic book sales are strong, that will bode well for any future “Jericho” on our screens.  He also encouraged us by saying that while season three is currently planned to run for six issues, it doesn’t end there.  He said to buy these six issues, and there is more to come.  CBS has been very supportive of the process and wants the story to continue.

In the meantime, if you would like to hear Shaun’s entire interview with Dan and Josh, it is archived at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/shaunomacradio/blog/2009/11 and you can also visit Devil’s Due Publishing’s official “Jericho” website at http://jerichocomic.squarespace.com.

In the meantime, what are you thoughts?  Have you read the comic?  Do you plan to read it?  Do you refuse to read it and would rather let the story end where season 2 did?

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They head back to…somewhere, where Jo and Ellen are having a drinking contest with Castiel. They’re losing, big time. Castiel knocks back six shots and sets the glasses down next to ten or so of their fallen comrades with no ill effect. As sober as ever, he suggests he may have started to feeling something. Meanwhile, they’re all making plans to go after the Devil, and bemoaning what a stupid idea it is, but they decide that stupid is the family tradition, and they’re going to be stupid ’til the end. And Bobby’s there, too, taking a melancholic black-and-white “last night on earth” photo. Yeah, this is going to end well. It looks quite a lot like the photo in “The End.”

So Ellen, Jo, Dean, Sam, and Castiel head of to the Carthage, where Lucifer is apparently holed up. They find it abandoned, and split up to investigate. Castiel quickly wanders off, as there are about a thousand reapers hanging out in town, looking quite like the angels in City of Angels. There are some more cool shots from Castiel’s POV, both the presence of the Reapers and his translocation from place to place. Anyway, he’s short thereafter captured by Lucifer and stuck in a magic fire circle.  Lucifer has some pressing questions about what it’s like to hang out with humans, and to make him an offer he can’t refuse, except he does.
The actors have great chemistry, and the scene is  quite wonderful. I quite like Lucifer when he’s not going all angsty emo.

Elsewhere, the rest of the group is attacked by a bunch of hellhounds. Jo gets eviscerated by them while saving Dean, and they all take refuge in a hardware supply store. They contact Bobby, who serves really no purpose than to talk Dean through it and to figure out that Lucifer is opening a seal- but this time, it’s one of the classical seals…dealing in this case with the one who rides the pale horse. So they plot some more on how they are going to kill the devil and save the day. Jo tells Dean he’s being an idiot, that she’s dying and there is nothing for it. So she’s going to take one for the team and go all suicide bomber on the hellhounds. Dean kisses Jo goodye, first on the forehead, as if in benediction, secondly on the mouth, in farewell. He tells her he’ll see her sooner or later, and she asks that it be later. There’s then a crushingly sad moment between Ellen and her daughter. In the end, Ellen stays behind with Jo, choosing to die with her, so she won’t go at it alone. And it’s a lucky thing she does, because Jo either dies or falls unconscious before it’s time to push the trigger. It’s beautifully done and heartfelt, if still rather pointless. The entire point of bringing them back to the show, after being gone for two seasons, was so that they could die and drive home the point that the Apocalypse is Serious Business! And, you know, sad! But it would have been more effective, plotwise, if they hadn’t been MIA for two seasons. It was too obviously contrived as a way to sell the cost of the apocalypse.

Dean and Sam confront the devil. Dean shoots the Devil, who of course doesn’t die but he does play dead for a moment, and whine about getting shot “owww!” He knocks Dean into a tree, then tells Sam the Colt can kill everything “in creation” but five things, and he’s one of the five. Lucifer goes back to grave digging. He looks cool doing it, instead of making a minion do it. He speechifies at Sam a bit, asks him to embrace the darkside and agree to be his vessel. He also drops several more family-and-fate anvils. I sure hope he’s simply playing Sam, but that seems unlikely as he’s not the only one dropping those anvils. He lets Sam know that he expects Sam to say yes…in Detroit, in six months. Maybe he’s planning a birthday party. Anyway, the Devil completes the ritual, slaughters his demonic minions (proving Crowley right).

Castiel has some fun playing with Meg, while he borrows a page from Uriel’s book and uses telekinesis to unscrew a pipe from the ceiling. He knocks her into the circle with him, holds her close, and fails to exorcise her. She taunts him a bit, and asks him what he can do. He says,
“I can do this!” and leans a bit closer. She’s totally thinking he’s going to make out with her, but unfortunately for her, he simply knocks her down and uses her as a bridge out of the fire circle. He’s all kinds of awesome. Anyway, this means he’s able to come to the rescue and whisk Sam and Dean away. Death rises.

Back at Bobby’s, it turns out that Cato got his wish (that Cartago Delenda Est). Bobby burns the black and white photo they took just a day ago. It’s a nice imagine, and a passable substitute for the usual pyre, but kind of defeats the point of taking the photo in the first place.

Last week, I found myself wondering if the writers were simply stalling. This week, I’m pretty sure they are. Let’s look at what we learned this week, folks.

1. The Apocalypse means death and destruction.
2. Lucifer is keeping up with his busy schedule.
3. Attempting to short circuit the apocalypse by shooting Lucifer in the face is a stupid idea.
4. Family-and-Fate anvils.
5. Anger leads to the dark side.
6. Lucifer’s vessel is falling to pieces.
7. Lucifer expects Sam to say ‘yes’ in Detroit.

None of these things were anything we didn’t particularly already know, even if just in theory, with the exception of 7. The entire point of this episode seems to have been to kill some more time, but this time with angst rather than humor. It was like a collection of random and beautiful tragic portraits; the bits and pieces were individually compelling – all of Castiel’s scenes, the Harvelle’s deaths, Lucifer finally seeming both charming and totally evil- but there was no larger impact, no strong narrative to tie them all together and give them meaning beyond the sum of their parts.

That said, I do want to give credit for a few things, the call backs to “The End” in particular. In this, the episode managed to toy with the idea that nothing had changed while undermining it at the same time. The similarities- the photograph, Detroit, the shoot-lucifer plan, even the abandoned city- all mirrored what we saw in 5×04, including the fact that it ended in failure. But that is undermined by the very changes that made those mirrors possible; the Detroit timetable has apparently been moved up quite a bit, Dean won’t spend five years chasing after a hopeless plan, and the photograph was destroyed. I also must mention Castiel’s loyalty to the Winchesters, diminished  powers, drinking, and charisma with the ladies (even of the demonic sort). It’s similar enough that to  2014 seems inevitable, but the meaning has changed. The future was nothing but despair; but even in this angsty episode, hope remains in the smallest things.

There was one other thing that impressed me. The idea of drawing parallels between the good guys and the bad guys (especially when fate is thrown around) in a story about an epic battle is not a new one, and always requires that there be some defining difference- usually love, but also sometimes loyalty, camaraderie, and selflessness. It’s a fine storytelling device, but it’s usually clumsy as hell. Normally it involves characters shouting it from the rooftops as clunky exposition. (See Harry Potter for a particularly clunky version, and Lord of the Rings for a less clunky but still anvilicious example).

Not so here, where the contrast between Lucifer’s self-absorption and disloyalty (in more than just the obvious sense; he  feels nothing for his devoted followers, his offer to Castiel is made in terms of self-interest, etc.) and the heroes’ iron-clad loyalty and selflessness is present, but notably not harped on. The conclusion is drawn but not beaten into our heads, for which I am endlessly grateful.

Ally McBeal. Wait, what? Let’s break it down a bit -

CW is trying to attract a young, female audience. Ally McBeal could be the perfect fit.

CW has already remade two classic Fox shows before (90210, Melrose Place). (And yes, I know they are not Fox owned shows but shows that ran on the Fox network)

CW is hurting for new shows after the failure of The Beautiful Life and (soon) Melrose Place.

The Complete Series finally arrived on DVD last month.

But who would play the ‘new’ Ally? How about someone who is sort of a star and recently guest-starred on five episodes of Gossip Girl? I won’t name names but connect the dots…

What do YOU think? Would a new version of the show work? What ever happened to Ally’s daughter from the last season? Could that…hmmm….

If the show disappears from the schedule tomorrow (as of this writing it is scheduled for a one-time time swap with “Cold Case,” which is ultimately a moot point since it will almost inevitably be bumped into the 11 pm hour by football) I will have no regrets about watching it.  If you are one of those who hasn’t bothered to watch “Three Rivers” because you too saw its early ratings and assumed it would check out early, or if you did see it but just didn’t particularly care for it, I ask that you watch the most recent episode, “The Luckiest Man.”  Real life transplant recipient Mandy Patinkin guest stars as Victor, a car accident victim who is also suffering from ALS.  Each episode chronicles the patients at Three Rivers Hospital, some who die and others who are saved by the organs from those lose fortunate.  Each story packs an emotional punch, but none so far have been as powerful as Victor’s.

Spoiler Warning if you’re going to read on: I do summarize some of the events at the hospital, so if you’d like to see this without knowing what happens in the show, please stop reading.

Initially Victor’s prognosis isn’t too bad:  Dr. Andy Yablonski (Alex O’Loughlin” seems to think that with some heart surgery he’ll be able to recover to the point he was at prior to the accident.  However, while in surgery, he finds a larger problem that is further complicated by his ALS.  Now Victor faces more grim prognosis of being hooked to a respirator, possibly permanently, and with very limited mobility. While in the hospital, Victor meets Kuol, a patient of Andy’s who is a refugee from war-torn Africa who made it to America only to find out he has a heart ailment that will require a transplant.  Just through one conversation about baseball, Kuol is able to get Victor to laugh they become quite close.  Victor decides that he doesn’t want to live hooked to a machine, that he wants to donate his heart to Kuol.   The moral questions this episode poses is upsetting enough, but it was Mandy Patinkin who drove viewers to tears (and if you saw it and weren’t at least feeling something emotionally for him, something is profoundly wrong.)  Mandy gave the performance of a lifetime, struggling to speak every word but still arguing with Andy that he wanted to give his heart to Kuol not just because it meant Kuol could live but so that he himself could die.  When he explained what he had to look forward to and summed it up in terms of, “I can’t breathe on my own, I can’t drive, I can’t go for a walk.  Soon…I won’t be able to swallow, or talk.”  Andy tries to reason, “But you can feel, you can think!”  Victor shoots back, “I feel angry!  And that’s how I’m gonna die!  And I think if I could’ve gone out on top like I wanted, I coulda beat that bastard, ALS, one last time…”  Mandy was phenomenal in this episode, those scenes in particular, and I strongly encourage you to at least go to CBS.com and watch this episode.  If not for the show, for Mandy Patinkin’s performance, whom I hope Emmy will recognize as being as outstanding as I did.  The emotion of his inner struggle to want to die vs. what Andy and his daughter wanted was only the beginning.  The feelings of giving up on life, watching his powerful goodbye with his daughter as he was being rolled to surgery one final time, and then watching the patients who had since asked him for his other organs as well lined up to see him roll off for the final time…  There are no words for the emotional toll that took on me as a viewer.

I again would ask that anyone reading this who has not seen this episode of “Three Rivers” please view it.  You will be treated to one of the finest acting performances I have ever seen.  And the greatness didn’t stop with Mandy, Alex O’Loughlin shined as well as rest of the “Three Rivers” cast.  This is one of those episodes that you will look at many years down the road and remember it.  Some shows are forgettable, some are memorable, this is the latter, and is one which I certainly felt an impact from that will stay with me.  I hope you give it a chance and will agree that this was worth watching, or that at the very least Mandy Patinkin deserves nothing short of an emmy for his performance in this episode.  He truly was phenomenal.

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And Lo, the Prophet Chuck realized he needed some cash, probably to fix up his house after the archangel Raphael blew up Castiel…and maybe to also impress his new lady friend, Becky the (crazy) Fangirl. So he decides to keep publishing the Supernatural series, and also to work the first ever Supernatural convention. Becky the crazed Fangirl decides that, like any good convention, this one needs its stars to attend. So she steals Chuck’s cell phone (“borrowed it from his pants”) and sends the Brothers Winchester a fake S.O.S.

Sam and Dean are not happy campers over the whole thing. They’re annoyed at being tricked when they have seriously more important things to do (which really, they’re going to get around to any day now), and they’re definitely not happy that Chuck is continuing to profit off their pain, and they are more than a little weirded out at all the people running around pretending to be them. And quoting, verbatim, some of the more painful and personal conversations of their lives.

One might wonder why they didn’t just make their death threats and leave, but as it turned out, the live action role playing “ghost hunt” turned out to be real, so they feel duty bound to deal with it. This is one case in which being genre-savvy was to their detriment, as while having real ghosts running around at a convention of fans might spell “horror movie” in most situations, in this one, it didn’t. The ghosts never did more than scare anyone until they meddled; they got rid of the one ghost keeping the others in check. So for various murphy’s law (to them) and standard plot (to us) related reasons, the real Sam and Dean end up trapped inside the hotel while the fake Sam and Dean are forced to do a bit of grave desecrating. Though Chuck manages to win the heart of the fair crazed fan girl by taking charge and kicking some ghost ass, so hurray for him.She “breaks up” with Sam, but as a parting gift, she hands him a plot coupon: “This Coupon Good for One Lead on the Gun that Can Kill Anything.”

Oh! And Dean has a conversation with the plucky Fake Dean and Sam duo, and realizes that people do actually appreciate them, and that his life does not suck, and he’s doing something important. In other words, it’s the speech from It’s A Terrible Life. He is then a bit weirded out to realize that the two guys that are into pretending to be he and his brother are actual lovers. So that’s that.

I may seem less than enthused by this episode. Let me be honest, here. I enjoyed this episode well enough, and I love metafiction. Jasper Fforde is one of my favorite authors, and The Monster at the End of The Book was one of the all-time best episodes of Supernatural. This was a truly sweet episode, a little love letter to the fans…but rather toothless. Metafiction is all about commenting on the story. It can and often does comment on the author and the audience, and even the relationship between the two. Mediocre metafiction creates a sense of detachment from the story. It breaks down the fourth wall, but in doing so, it also breaks the suspension of disbelief. It forces the audience to disengage. Great metafiction, on the other hand, always manages to bring it back around to the story, and reinvests the audience back in the narrative. In essence, it makes the audience and the author as much part of the story as the characters, and by doing so, makes it seem more real.

This they did not succeed at that so much. There were plenty of amusing moments and inside jokes. It had some great lines an some mushy commentary on how much the writers really love the fans, even if they’re crazy. There was some clever symmetry and echoing of lines, a touch of playing with the idea of roles and how we play them but….toothless. It had the potential to be very sharp. The characters could have been examining their lives from the outside, but this didn’t really happen. They were uncomfortable, but their reactions were muted. There was nothing quite at the level of the author-avatar conversation with Sam about the path he was on and his motivations of last season. In essence, it lacked and development or forward movement.

Supernatural has done two mediocre metafictional episodes, back to back. They still weren’t quite as self-indulgent and conceited as such episodes usually are, but they lacked the bite they needed. I can’t help but compare last week’s half-assed “Don’t we wish this really was a TV show” and this week’s fan nitpicking and “Our lives are not for public consumption.” It’s the same kind of “Hey, we’re breaking the fourth wall! That counts, right?” attitude. I’m beginning to think that the writers are dragging their feet on the apocalypse storyline. This episode had a certain wistful quality, like a “thank you and goodbye” before the shit really hits the fan.

I do have a couple random thoughts that didn’t fit very well above:

• The LARPer Sam and Dean going super husky voiced cracked me up. I do often end up thinking someone needs to slip the actors a cough drop or two.
• Becky amuses me. She may be an over-excitable weirdo with some issues about proper social interactions, but so’s Chuck in his own way, and she’s just so damn upbeat.
• The cell phone ruining the fake-ghost’s scene. I think I’ve seen that on about a hundred blooper reels.
• Chuck! I love the character, I love the actor, and I loved how all those scenes worked. I loved his lovelorn faces and his convention talk. Though I did get a bit suspicious to the end that there was some direct quotations from ComiCons past.