Andrew Dabb Writing the Supernatural Season 11 Finale. What Does This Mean?
Yesterday, SPN Producer Jim Michaels tweeted some news that threw the fandom for a bit of a loop. For the first time ever, a non-showrunner will be writing the season finale. The task this year has been passed onto head writer Andrew Dabb. He will be writing episode 11.23.
Why isn’t Jeremy Carver writing the finale?
It’s pretty simple, his project Frequency, a pilot that he pitched last year at NBC and was passed over, has been picked up this year by The CW. It’s a remake of the film by the same name from 2000. He is Executive Producer of that show and writing the pilot, so he’s tied up with that right now. The pilot is in casting stage and close to shooting.
I’ve heard the question, does this mean Jeremy Carver is leaving Supernatural? No, but his role could change. It all depends if The CW picks up Frequency. As of right now, they’ve only committed to the pilot. The decision on pickup won’t happen until May. The CW has ordered six pilots and will likely pick up two to three for series. They don’t have a lot of slots. So Frequency is really going to have to impress to get a shot, because one of those pilots is a high profile Kevin Williamson/David Nutter project that seems like a sure thing.
What if Frequency gets a series order? Jeremy Carver becomes a showrunner for two shows. Chances are the new show will take most of his attention at first. He likely won’t be writing episodes for Supernatural anymore (or will do a rare one here and there). That’s what’s nice about a veteran show like Supernatural, it practically runs itself. Phil Sgriccia this year took over a lot of the production management when Robert Singer stepped down. Andrew Dabb has taken over the lead role in the writers room. The same structure would stay in place.
For those wondering how Carver can do both, this model is already taking place at The CW. Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, Executive Producers of The Vampire Diaries, have gone onto other projects while keeping their titles on The Vampire Diaries. Caroline Dries has been the lieutenant in charge for that show while Michael Narducci has been handling The Originals. Plec even has a third CW show premiering soon, Containment. Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Marc Guggenheim are all dividing their time between Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow. Berlanti also does Supergirl and has more pilots going this year, yet he’s still tied to his original show, Arrow.
So, it’s all good. I say good luck to Frequency in the pilot process and good luck to Andrew Dabb for the finale. It’s a well deserved honor for him. Now we just need that official announcement for season 12, which no doubt should be coming soon (in March anyway).
I was surprised when I saw that yesterday, too. Congratulations to Mr. Dabb; count me among those that have been very happy with the results of the more prominent role he’s taken in the writer’s room this season. Seems like an unenviable task, like herding cats, but he’s done a very good job.
Jeremy Carver has gotten lazy with Supernatural. He did a great job for season 8, and most of season 9 was pretty good. But it started going downhill FAST during season 10, and season 11 has not gotten any better.
I’ll be very happy to see Carver move-on.
Opinions vary I guess but I thought the second half of S9 and the first half of S10 were sub par by SPN standards. I thought the show greatly improved when Adam Glass moved on in the middle of S10 and Robert Singer stepped back this season. So far S11 has been fantastic.
I will miss Jeremy Carver’s scripts for SPN if Frequency is picked up as a series. If it isn’t does that mean that Carver will come back to writing premieres and finales?
I agree with you regarding the second half of season 9 and the first bit of season 10.
For season 9, I think they dragged-out the rift b/n Sam & Dean over Dean’s deal with Gadreal. Plus, they got rid of Abaddon too quickly, and shifted the focus away from the angel factions to Metatron. That was all a very bad decision.
The Demon Dean story of season 10 was a massive disappointment. They resolved it far too quickly, in lieu of shifting the focus to the Rowenna/Crawley nonsense. I think they could have salvaged season 10 if Dean legitimately had a relapse towards the end of the season, and once again became a demon. Instead, we got the Stein family. Where the hell did they come from?
Season 11 is better than season 10, but I would still rate it as one of the weaker seasons of the series. Of course, there were some good MOTW episodes this season. I’ll wait ’till the end to see how it all goes down.
Well I guess Jeremy Carver came in to Supernatural lazy because I thought season 8 was atrocious especially the first half. The second half was OK…. first half of nine was passible then all down hill from there. Season 11 has seemed like a completely different show and knowing that it’s largely due to Dabb makes sense. I am all for him taking over completely. Let JC go run his new show, clearly he’s not really been all that interested in Supernatural for some time now.
Yup, I’m with you. JC does not seem all that engaged with Supernatural.
However, I did like season 8. The concept of shutting-down Hell, and Naomi and her “mind control” of Castiel was all good in my book. Benny was also a great addition to the show. Even the first half of season 9 was good.
I will never forgive Carver for the “Sam doesn’t look for Dean” debacle. It was OC forcing the character of Sam to do something (or not do something) so contrary to his established character that it was incomprehensible. Carver threw Sam as a character under the bus to force the story to go in some lame, unsupported direction that was inorganic and illogical and then compounded the problem by making no real attempt to try and justify what or why Sam had made the decisions he’d made. I’ve seen huge amounts of head canon from fans as they tried to justify what Carver had Sam doing (or not doing), but it sure as hell wasn’t on my TV screen in any way that made sense to me. That first half of season 8 ruined the rest of it for me to a certain extent. We are still feeling the effects of those choices on Sam’s character to this day. The Sam of seasons 1-7 would NEVER have made the choices that Carver wanted us to believe that season 8 Sam had made. Epic fail IMO and for me it made me suspicious of every thing Carver did thereafter. Some of it has been good, but I basically spend all my time waiting around for him to decimate Sam’s character again simply because he feels like it.
E, so true. Every word you said. What makes it worse is that RT has said he was shot down twice when he made a pitch to write an episode elaborating what happened to Sam before he hit the dog. It’s unclear if he was shot down by Carver or Singer. Then there was the lame attempt at clearing the air in Into the Mystic. Some folks applauded it, I personally thought it was lame and it didn’t jive with my head canon. It’s really odd because Carver gave us some great Sam POV when he was a writer under Kripke. He was also the overall story editor under Kripke in S3-S5. I don’t know what changed when he became showrunner in S8… Maybe the combination of Glass and Carver. Who knows. I’m personally thrilled that Dabb is running the writers room now and Robert Berens (along with Jenny Klein) are the story editors. The change in the show this season has been amazing.
I am entirely convinced that the story RT wanted to write about Sam would be to make sure he is completely nailed to the wall for not rescuing Dean. It most certainly would not be a canon compliant story of a character who has actually NEVER once ‘left his brother to die’ despite what the writers choose to SAY happened while showing us something different. It isn’t that RT dislikes Sam particularly he just thinks he has a guest role in Dean’s superhero origin story. And the heroic bits of Sam’s history RT doesn’t like he changes.
I have long been afraid RT will get his hands on this ( travesty of a) storyline.
Even in into the mystic – really the only thing either brother has done wrong in the las 3 seasons, as evinced by the need for an apology, is SAM? Really?
Go ahead RT prove me wrong.
Unfortunately I’m inclined to agree with you. I harboured hopes that they would return to it in some small way, especially in the light of the ‘apology’ where Sam said that he ‘stopped’, which implies that he did something. With Singer and Carver not as involved any more I was even more hopeful. But Robbie Thompson telling the story, no thanks. The pity for Dean and condemnation for Sam would go through the roof. Sam has apologised and that seems to be all that’s needed to close off any storyline on this show, regardless of what was done. It doesn’t say much for the writing that this is the way issues are usually resolved but Sam apologies always seem to go down well.
I hear what all you ladies are saying and during Hellatius S8 is one season I avoid, I wasn’t overly pleased with soulless Sam because I don’t feel the story was told properly It started to come good when Dean found out what was happening and told Sam he had no soul. Never once had they screwed around with Dean’s character in this way, not once.
I don’t know if they were trying to prove ?? something or as you said “Nail Sam to the wall ” I think everyone who leans towards Sam as their favourite wouldn’t and couldn’t understand this total turn around of Sam’s character, and honestly deep down I thick Jared must have found it uncharactaristic as well.
If they had of come into S8 Ep1, with flashes of Sam in a depressed state and searching bks, or scribing Crowley and Castiel with no results, and then seeing him slowly decline into a even worse condition then hitting a “Dog” and meeting Ameila it could have been more excepting. The one point I would like to make is that both Sam & Dean knew about Purgatory because the Alpha Vamp explained it to them OK Sam was soulless at the time but I’m sure he would remember. So why did Dean instantly think Dean and Cas were dead, surely he would have guessed they were in purgatory. This would have made for a more S8 with Sam looking for away to get into purgatory and fighting along side his brother Makes sense to me. Yes that whole debacle still shits me, and not getting that supposed ep. to explain is really annoying. I’m so glad there has been a move around with writers head writers exc (things I don’t fully understand) Because the “Proof is in the Pudding” Look at S11 WONDERFUL
I hear what all you ladies are saying and during Hellatius S8 is one season I avoid, I wasn’t overly pleased with soulless Sam because I don’t feel the story was told properly It started to come good when Dean found out what was happening and told Sam he had no soul. Never once had they screwed around with Dean’s character in this way, not once.
I don’t know if they were trying to prove ?? something or as you said “Nail Sam to the wall ” I think everyone who leans towards Sam as their favourite wouldn’t and couldn’t understand this total turn around of Sam’s character, and honestly deep down I thick Jared must have found it uncharactaristic as well.
If they had of come into S8 Ep1, with flashes of Sam in a depressed state and searching bks, or scribing Crowley and Castiel with no results, and then seeing him slowly decline into a even worse condition then hitting a “Dog” and meeting Ameila it could have been more excepting. The one point I would like to make is that both Sam & Dean knew about Purgatory because the Alpha Vamp explained it to them OK Sam was soulless at the time but I’m sure he would remember. So why did Sam instantly think Dean and Cas were dead, surely he would have guessed they were in purgatory. This would have made for a more S8 with Sam looking for away to get into purgatory and fighting along side his brother Makes sense to me. Yes that whole debacle still shits me, and not getting that supposed ep. to explain is really annoying. I’m so glad there has been a move around with writers head writers exc (things I don’t fully understand) Because the “Proof is in the Pudding” Look at S11 WONDERFUL
eilf, you beat me to it, because I have always thought RT’s supposed pleading to tell what happened to Sam before the dog was hogwash. Finding Sam POV in RT episodes is generally akin to finding a unicorn- not gonna happen. My cynicism was vindicated in Into the Mystic when, given the PERFECT OPPORTUNITY for Sam to offer some explanation for why he stopped looking, or for Dean to acknowledge some transgressions of his own, instead we got an abject apology from Sam and magnanimous forgiveness from Dean. The perfect bullshit resolution to a bullshit story line. Yeah, I guess I’m still bitter.:)
Did Sam apologize in Into the Mystic? I thought he said something to the tune of… I stopped looking and I never forgiven myself for it… blah, blah. And Dean said something about I forgive you and we’re together now and that all that matters or something… But yeah totally unsatisfactory and yeah I’m still pissed. I really hope the writers stop picking at this scab. Every time they try to address it, they just make it worse.
Hi Didi. It’s true he didn’t use the words “I’m sorry,” but I think that’s implicit when you say that you’ve never forgiven yourself for something. At least I’d totally accept that as an apology!
It grates on my very last nerve that they opened the double doors of reciprocity in that conversation and didn’t have Dean say one single thing. It was the perfect opportunity for BOTH brother’s to clear the air between them, but then Sam is going on and on about how’s he’s never going to forgive himself blah, blah, blah and Dean is “sure thing Sammy” and…. and….. AND? Geez.
Hmm…. I really like Frequency as a movie so he better do a good job is all I’m saying. 😉
It does not really matter to me who does what on the show . They are all as bad as each other however Dabb would be the lesser of two evils I suppose.
im worried 🙁 im sorry, but im scared:o
i have a question, has nothing to do with Andrew Dabb, is Daniel Loflin still on staff?
Daniel Loflin’s last Producer credit for Supernatural was Season 8’s Sacrifice; last writing credit was for Season 8’s Remember the Titans.
okie thanks i was just wondering