TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 2/08/11

This week, we have spoilers from V and Supernatural:

V (Tuesday nights, 9pm, ABC)
By Silvia Moreno-Garcia

V‘s ratings continue to drop, but that’s not stopping the producers from ending the show on a cliffhanger. The V Files has an interview with executive producer Steve Pearlman. He  says that in the finale, viewers will get to see “the Full Monty – The whole lizard”. Will it be to little, too late?

Jane Badler is still promoting the show in Europe and seems to be having a ball doing it. This time, she was in France. If you speak French, I recommend you check out several of the interviews making the rounds. This one is a TV interview where she talks about her music career. In this one, she discusses the show, and reveals that her character will try to break free and regain her throne. She also reveals that Lisa finds her in the ship’s dungeon and they become allies.

Laura Vandervoort talked about her relationship with Tyler. She is now “going through her fertility phase, and is of age” and she has to “control urges.” Her instinctual desire to mate, then kill her mate, seems to cause some friction in the relationship. Frankly, I wish she’d eat the guy.

Some previews of the next episode show Tyler is going to become a pilot for the aliens. *Puke* I’m not the only person who hates this character, by the way. There are entire threads at IMDB dedicated to Tyler-bashing. Someone even proposes a solution: “Erica tells Tyler the truth, then he cries and pouts, then breaks it off with Lisa, and runs away from home to go live with his dad. End of the Tyler character. Then Joshua and Lisa fall in love and together, they fight the evil of Anna.”

Can someone hire that person as a writer?

Supernatural (Friday nights, 9pm, CW)
By Paula R. Stiles

So far, this week, in the previews for next week, we’ve got the CW preview and a clip showing Sam beating an obnoxious cop half to death after the cop stops him and Samuel. The preview (like the synopsis) had already clued us in that this would be a Sam-heavy episode with Sambot flashbacks, and I’m rather glad they’re getting this out of the way sooner than later. Plus, the spider aspect is intriguing. You can do lots of creep and body horror with spiders on a low budget.

But bringing Sambot back so soon still feels like an extra bout of the clap after you just went through an entire course of antibiotics. We have so much else to deal with this season, but this lame subplot just will not go away. Please, show, make the bad subplot go away. And don’t subject us to Sambot flashbacks the whole rest of the season.

Also, I know some fans get all hot and bothered over Sambot beating people up, but I’ve never bought Jared Padalecki as a violent person. Ever. Yes, I know he’s huge in person. Yes, I’m sure he gets angry at times, just like anybody else, and I’m sure that could be intimidating in person. But he doesn’t project menace on screen, not even when he tries. And I don’t think I’m the only one who gets this disconnect watching him – just look at how approvingly some fans see scenes where Sam goes off on someone, yet the fandom almost universally freaks out whenever Dean punches somebody’s lights out. This is because Jensen Ackles can project serious menace when he wants to. He’s scary. Some actors have that quality. Most don’t.

Still, I’m holding out the same hopes for this Friday as for last Friday, since “Like a Virgin” turned out okay and Dean seems not likely to get shoved into the shotgun seat of the plot any time, soon. In fact, the synopsis indicates that the main story conflict is Dean finding out about what Sambot did, rather than just Sam remembering it (though the CW preview is more about Sam paying for Sambot’s sins).

Movin’ on to casting, the role of Samuel Colt has been filled. He’ll be played by Georgia native, Sam Hennings. Supposedly, this fictional version of Colt will be rode hard and put away wet. Well, I’d think so, considering the real Samuel Colt died the year after the episode is set (on my birthday, no less).

Also, Katie Walder has been tweeting about getting a guest/possibly recurring role as Fate. Since she’s filming now, this appears to be 6.18, since Jim Beaver tweeted on the 5th that they had just started filming it (Guess that means Bobby is also in it). She describes her character as “very uptight“.

The title for 6.19 is out. It’s “Mommy Dearest“. It would be fun if the regular actor for the Mother of All turned out to be Samantha Smith, because that would be completely twisted, but I’m not holding my breath. Maybe the title refers to Ellen.

The synopsis for the dreaded meta episode (6.15) is now up:

“SAM AND DEAN ARE TRANSPORTED TO AN ALTERNATE REALITY – Raphael (guest star Lanette Ware) launches an attack on Castiel (Misha Collins) and his allies, sending a particularly frightening angelic hitman (guest star Carlos Sanz) after Balthazar (guest star Sebastian Roche), Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles)…In an effort to protect the brothers, Balthazar sends them to an alternate universe where they are the stars of a TV show called ‘Supernatural’ and they are actors named ‘Jensen Ackles’ and ‘Jared Padalecki’. The brothers are confused when Castiel appears to be a tweet-happy actor named ‘Misha Collins’ and Sam is married to Ruby (Genevieve Cortese). Charles Beeson directed the episode written by Ben Edlund (##615).”

I am intrigued at how and why the brothers and Balthazar ended up on the same side, enough to get labeled Castiel’s “allies” and get an angelic hitman on their collective trail. The rest of it sounds stupid, to be honest, and I’m really not lovin’ the backdoor attempt to get Ruby back. Oy. But we’ll see. I suspect it may end up like Edlund’s fairy entry – half-hilarious/half-idiotic.

Speaking of writers, Adam Glass gave a somewhat spoilery interview this past week. He went into a fair bit of detail on how he’s been approaching the show. I couldn’t help thinking that his mentioning that he had previously only worked on procedural/non-serial shows, coupled with his talking about writing Sambot giving the writers a chance to write the character however they want and Dean being there to give writers a chance to get in touch with their Inner Smartass, showed up a rather large problem with his episodes – they are…well…very episodic. The continuity is screwed up, the characterization all over the place. Pretty much what you would expect from a writer who has little experience writing for a serialized show. What I don’t get is why the showrunners haven’t stepped in to smooth out those rough edges and hand the man the show bible to read, already.

The latest CW schedule is up through April 1. We’re getting up through 6.16 (“…And Then There Were None”) on March 4 and then repeats after that through the 1st. So, we won’t be seeing the western episode until April. In other news, because Smallville is getting a two-hour series finale on May 13, Supernatural will be preempted that week and end its season with a two-hour finale on May 20, instead.

Finally, we move on to ratings. As everyone and their mother knows now, the show came back with a new episode, a week late, and the ratings were surprisingly solid (though the repeat ratings for 6.11 on Wednesday were kinda “meh” with 1.02 million and a 0.4 demo in adults). “Like a Virgin” got 2.25 million, a 1.0 in adults, and (wait for it) a 1.3 in women. In contrast, Nikita got below 2.4 million, a 0.9 in adults and a 1.0 in women. Even The Vampire Diaries only got 3.2 million and a 1.5 in adults, which is rather low for it.

And Fringe, after all that boasting that Supernatural would not make a dent…well, it did. Or maybe it was a bad moon rising. Or something. Anyhoo, Fringe dropped to a 1.6 rating in adults and below 4.3 million viewers. It if remains steady, it could be okay (still hard to tell), but it will probably keep dropping. And there is also the issue that Lie to Me went out well in its last two weeks with ratings above a 2. I’m thinking they will both be gone after this season (though I would like to see Lie to Me come back). At any rate, Supernatural is doing better than expected, and better than most on the network (90210 got under 1.7 million and Gossip Girl positively tanked with 1.5 million. Both got a 0.8 in adults) which is always a good thing when going into renewal season.

We’ll be back next week with more spoilers. Stay tuned and check out our reviews of V and Supernatural.