Hiatus Already? – by Elle2
Sheesh, only six eppies in and already a break. Sure I could whine about it but that won’t change anything so instead I’ll just ramble a bit. Let’s try to figure this whole thing out, 22 episodes to watch in a 35 week ‘season’…odds are we’re going to have a lot more repeats coming our way.
Some argue that last year the CW really made a mess of how it scheduled Supernatural, I disagree. ‘Course I disagree on a lot of things…like this being a Sam/Jared site only. Sure there is a fixation on Sam’s hair and Sam’s shirts but that doesn’t make this a Sam Site and Dean is Doormat Site, it simply means that Sam’s hair has more to comment about and frankly he does have some fairly cool shirts…like that white one with the pattern underneath that you only see when he rolls up the sleeves. That must be one of ‘those’ shirts for which the wardrobe department only has perhaps one because we only ever see Sam wear that shirt when he’s sitting and talking – WIAWSNB and AVSC comes to mind. It’s not a shirt that gets food or blood or dirt on it, must be one of a kind.
I digress…yeah, that happens a lot. Last year the CW gave us ten in a row, seven repeats, four in a row, four repeats, four in a row, two repeats and the final four. Good bye to season 4. Honestly, that’s not too bad. The first ten were awesome; face it, ten Thursdays in a row of nothing but new, who can complain about that? Sure, the next seven Thursdays of repeats weren’t much fun but since Kripke has stated it takes about four weeks post-production to complete an episode, by the time we watched Heaven and Hell they had only just finished filming the 11th episode perhaps two to three weeks earlier, it wasn’t ready.
We know from other interviews that episode 15 was shot partly in December and partly in January and the final episode of the season was finished up in mid-April, so seeing it in mid-May puts that four weeks of post-production right on schedule. Face it, with only 22 episodes and 35 Thursdays for the CW to schedule…there’s going to be repeats.
Also, we got a bit of a treat this season as Supernatural came back a week early, yep, one whole week early. That pretty much guaranteed us an earlier break especially if the CW intended to complete the November sweeps period with all new episodes. Take heart my fan-friends, at least if the CW holds true to last season’s schedule we won’t have eight Thursdays without a new episode after the first ten have rolled out…we’ll only have seven Thursdays (which incidentally is still eight weeks – ouch!)
So why don’t I think this is a Sam/Jared only site? Simply because Alice and I as well as Elle and Tigershire and Faellie and others (mea culpa to any and all I have missed) who post articles have made it very clear in all of our writing that we find the flaws and the heroics of both brothers worthy of attention. Sam’s hair, Sam’s shirts notwithstanding, Sam’s flaws, his storyline –and there so is one – are just as compelling to the writers here as are Dean’s. Dean may have more women, more snarky lines, more fun with the music and, in general, life but his storyline is not considered less (or more) nor is his character arc considered more (or less) important than Sam’s.
Anywho, that’s just a quick note from me…just trying out my writing fingers again to see if they still have anything in them. Sure, ‘tis pure fluff and nothing but fluff from me but perhaps when the next break comes I’ll be back with an article/analysis or two of more substance…then again, that presumes anything I’ve written before had substance and not just a lot of words.
Ciao all!
Elle2
Thanks for the great article elle2! So good to see you writing again. Thanks for the defense of the site and the show’s hiatus. I think it’s times like these that people like causing trouble out of boredom. Man I wish I had that kind of time!
(I have a comment for this “it’s only Sam’s site” comment that was under the puppy picture and is no more. You know, I have a feeling that it was a joke. About puppy eyes and all the dog pictures on the site.)
Hi, Elle2, good to see you back.
And not just with fluff, either. I’ve been wondering about the shooting to transmission schedule, and you help make that a lot clearer for me.
22 episodes at $2 million plus per episode, delivered to deadlines with sometimes only a few days grace until transmission is a large team of people and a pretty big management job. Given the rush, it’s remarkable that there is as little to pick up on in the way of errors as even this most fanatical of viewerships can find.
On the shooting schedule, I read that it’s 8 days per episode. Is that 8 days straight, or 8 over 5 or 6 days in the working week? Any days off, and are they the same days each week or after each episode is shot? I’m curious, if anyone has the answers.
Ah! I wondered what was going on with all the stop/start nonsense … I thought it was just ‘cos Mr. K hates us for our whinging ways and wants us to suffer as much as possible. Paranoid, who … Me?
As for the Samcentric accusations, I love ’em both and I honestly hadn’t noticed any bias one way or the other … It’s all in the eye of the beholder, I reckon …
I dont realy understand all this stuff about when the programme is aired, here in the UK we dont have it at all yet and can only watch on-line…which I do! However thanks for explaining!
If these “folks” are not happy with the content of the site who is forcing them to visit and read the articles? I personally come here by my own free will and choice……and will continue to do so.
Hi, Alice, Vana Nane, Faellie, Suze and Diane,
Great comments by everyone. As for how the shooting works, from what I gather from casting calls the shooting is Monday – Friday with weekends off. Still, since shooting frequently goes until the wee hours of Saturday a.m. it’s not a full weekend. Also, from interviews with J&J they’ve said that they’ll finish shooting an episode at say 3 a.m. and turn around the next morning and start on the next episode so it’s 8 ‘working days’ — which is business-speak for Monday – Friday and when those 8 are done it’s on to the next one.
In the UK, Diane, you’re on a completely different schedule as you air the episodes on another different schedule so you may get them straight through depending on how it’s sold there. That’s all guessing on my part, I have no knowledge other than occasionally hearing/reading that the new season starts in say January…
Vana Naine, I can only hope the person was joking and/or kidding. I’d hate to think someone is being nasty but let’s face it, nastiness abounds and some people do enjoy spreading their joy– erh, misery. As for the puppy dog pics…can’t help myself. He’s my baby and I don’t mind sharing a cute pic from time to time. (I have hundreds but I’ll only bore you with one or two now and again 😉
Also, Diane, once again you make an insightful comment…people have free will to come and read and peruse or not…don’t like it, don’t come. We love having you, but if you’re mean, we’ll not miss you.
I enjoyed writing something quick and hopefully it’ll spark my desire to write some other articles that have been pinging around in my mind. Who knows, I may even capture a review on an upcoming eppie.
Thanks all!
Elle2
Elle2! I missed you!
4 weeks post production!? Wow! Never though it would take all that time after filming to end an episode. Thanks for clear that out.
Biased? This site? This (awesome) writers? Really? I just got one thing to say about it:
People if you don’t like it don’t read it and please, please don’t write in the comments area, unless is constructive criticism, because all of us here don’t really care about that kind of opinions. Thank you.
Hi, Dany,
Thanks you! I’ve missed everyone here as well…although I’ve been lurking around.
I don’t know all that goes into post production but it’s sure to be sound, lighting, computer effects and then the editing and cutting of scenes moving things around and around and getting notes from the studio execs…all that I get from reading various articles in the SPN magazine when they talk about the editing crew and sound/light etc and all. So, I guess it’s a lot, pretty cool.
Happy Friday to all and only six days until …The Curious Case of Dean Winchester…whee!
Honestly, I’ve never detected any pro-whomever bias here. I don’t get where this sentiment is supposedly rooted in. I think because Dean can be viewed more as the ‘steadying force’ of the two – glad I’m not one of you folks running this place ’cause that’d be a wormy can – less ‘seems’ to be said about him. He’s not the one with the special power gig. I dig both characters as both are necessary for the storyline. Dean shares my taste in tunes so I can relate (of course my car is nowhere near as cool, but I’ll conveniently blame my wife for that), but it’s akin to bitching about one-half of a well-oiled rock band.
Anyway, I can live with a week hiatus, it’s the biggie in November/December that’s a sumbitch, especially given that my beloved Browns are nothing but a colossal mess. Thank Beelzebub for Supernatural DVDs and the mighty Cavs.
You don’t write fluff, Elle2. We missed you! Honestly, I”m surprised at how little time it takes to make a whole episode..I mean, just think of the number of times the have to shoot just one scene, and then all that footage has to be gone over with a fine toothed comb. But I guess that 5 seasons in they would have gotten a good momentum going.
I’ll add one more voice eagerly asserting how un-biased this site this. That’s why I love this site. Also, in my country, there’s no such thing as a hiatus when it comes to tv shows. So SN hiatus took a lot of getting used to for me…thank god for the online fandom, or it would’ve been the end of me hahah
Hi Elle2,
thanks for another eloquent and matter-of-fact article… and as for the fluff that might steal in… so what? We’re fans, after all, and the occasional fluff kind of comes with the ‘job description’, doesn’t it?
Personally, whenever I liked a show, I was never happy about hiatus, and you always get that in one way or another, because of network schedules, ratings, or sometimes mere broadcasting incompetence… Sorry, this might sound slightly arrogant…. Let me explain…
I live in Germany at present, and Supernatural was never a big thing here. The network that put the show on screens over here has given us only seasons one and two, and three hasn’t even been acquired, yet, from what I know they don’t plan to air more seasons here. Doesn’t affect me personally, as I never like the dubbed version anyway. The ‘sync company’ did not put a lot of effort into it, they chose voices for the leads that don’t really fit and all that pun, the references to popculture and many more aspects just got lost in the process.
So, I, for one, would tune in whenever the show was on air, just to get ratings up, but I didn’t watch it – I stick to the dvds in the original version and for the time being watch it online. On the other hand – there are presumably enough fans out there who don’t speak English, and they have a hard time for certain with catching up on their fave show.
And, furthermore, when SPN was on air here, they mixed up the episodes, Provenance for instance was shown during a season two hiatus, and with other tv-series the network shows the seasons get mixed up or simply fizzle out without ever coming to the conclusion. How frustrating that must be to the fans I can only imagine.
Since I don’t really have time to watch all the shows I would like to follow, I have to choose and simply skip several series, because I would have problems keeping up due to tight time windows I have to do anything else besides work and the stuff you have to take care of every day.
From what I was able to observe… Supernatural does not really get a lot of press, does it? I read a lot of international magazines (though I don’t get many US-magazines over here, and whenever I want to read e.g. Variety, I need to order it… not practical, and even online you don’t get it all…), and SPN hardly gets mentioned at all. There was a nice article in ‘SciFiNow’ this month, one of the few, though it didn’t really offer any new information. But at least there were four full colour pages of our show…
For us fans the show is a thing we keep close to our hearts, of course. For the network it is a means to earn money. It is a business, after all, and in the end it all boils down to numbers… That’s how this particular part of the world runs… When we accept that, we might not feel so affected by a hiatus of one or of eight weeks… There is not much we actually can do about it, is there?
This one-episode-hiatus we have to ‘endure’ right now did not strike me as a catastrophe… after all, it is only one week. Getting through the December-hiatus will probably be harder… But I introduced another friend to the show, and we watch it from season one, so during the season 5 pause I will enjoy earlier season-exploits of our dear Winchesters, which is fun… and I love to see how someone reacts to the show when watching it the first time… much like I did when I tuned into episode one and remained hooked ever since.
As for the ‘bias-matter’ you are referring to in your great article… I’ve already put something down last night at Alice’s ‘Why I Write Recaps’ article-comments, so I’m not going to repeat that here – I’d like to say, though, that I really appreciate your approach to that question.
I honestly don’t see why putting this whole site on trial over so irrelevant a matter became important to some people.
I am still quite new to this site and the whole commenting-thing at all, but from the moment on Alice directed me here and I started reading the articles I have never found this site to be mega-biased. There will always be some kind of bias, of course, as everyone who writes looks at a thing from their own standpoint. Which is perfectly alright.
I just don’t get the whole discussion. Sometimes all I want to say to those who keep complaining about the matter is ‘Get a life’. They probably simply have too much time on their hands and perhaps not many ‘real’ issues to deal with in their lives, when they can devote so much time, energy and resentment to a debate over a tv-show and their – made up – characters…
In my line of work I deal with the very worst that happens to innocent people and with all that harsh reality I am confronted with on a daily basis … I love to watch a show and get into a story that moves me in many ways, and I feel very protective about the show, I do, but it never came to me that I would get my arms up over it… Now, does that make me a lesser fan? Or am I not entitled to call myself a fan at all? Is it really that important?
It’s starting to become a bit confusing. I’ve heard of the fanaticism before, and I’ve read about some strange moments at cons (though I have never been to one, yet), but I guess a part of me always wanted to believe that I misunderstood what I read. I always hope that people are not that narrow-minded. But, it seems, some are. I should know better.
All my best, take care, Jas
Hi, Randal, Narcissus and Jasminka,
Great comments all. Randal, I agree, sometimes the less said on a matter, the better…still, I have another article coming out on the whole bias thing…stay tuned.
Narcissus, thanks for the compliment, feels good to be back (sorta) anyway, I think it takes almost three months to do a full episode and that’s from concept to outline to pre-production (I assume that means set designs and locations and casting as well as all the talking to the network on what is and is not acceptable, then there’s the production, shooting (eight days) and then there’s the whole post-production, somewhere around four weeks) so the people behind the scenes are always working in multiple episodes at the same time. Kripke and Sera have both said at times that they’re in the midst of working on six eppies at the same time, no wonder they get confused about what goes where when they’re interviewed.
Jasminka, you’re so right, some people need to ‘get a life’…I have another quickie article coming out in response to the whole bias or whatever thingy so I hope that is enjoyable. You bring up a good point, when something is translated…wow, sure a lot of the references would get lost, well, in the translation. Hah! LOL
Our little show doesn’t get much promo but we love it and that’s why we all come here to The Winchester Family Business…to love, promote and drool…pick your brother or choose both and drool away.
Hey, not *all* of us drool. Okay, I forgot about Casey the bartender.
Randal,
You’re so right! My apologies on the generality. GLad you could drool over Casey. 😎
Couldn’t believe what has been happening on this site! Why read, post, even visit a site if you don’t like it! 🙁 I think the less said the better. If negative posters don’t have someone to argue with, they don’t have any fun.
Loved your review. Glad to see you back
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