- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 7/6/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 7/13/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 7/20/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 7/27/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 8/3/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 8/10/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 8/17/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 8/24/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 8/31/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 9/7/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 9/14/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 9/21/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 9/28/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 10/05/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 10/12/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 10/19/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 10/26/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 11/02/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 11/09/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 11/16/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 11/23/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 11/30/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 12/07/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 12/14/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 12/21/11
- TV Spoilers & Speculation Corner: 12/28/11
This week, we have spoilers for Doctor Who and Supernatural. Also, don’t forget to check out Supernatural Fridays and our pre-sale for our upcoming Gothic horror anthology, Candle in the Attic Window. You can get it for 20% off, until it comes out on September 20, and it helps us afford our monthly tributes to Azathoth:
Doctor Who (Saturday nights, 9pm, BBC America)
By Heather S. Vina
A little light on the spoilers this week. SpoilerTV did post the promotional photos for this week’s episode, “The God Complex.”
The clip that they showed at Comic-Con for this episode is up on YouTube. You can find it here.
And the promo for the episode is here.
I’m really curious to see what the Doctor’s “fear” will be in his room. It seems like his greatest fear is his dark side, but will that manifest in this episode and what will it manifest as?
Supernatural (Friday nights, 9pm, CW)
By Paula R. Stiles
Season seven comes back at 9pm next Friday, September 23. In its place this Friday, the CW will be repeating the pilot of The Secret Circle, according to the print edition of TV Guide. Yes, I can you guys groaning, already.
The season six DVDs and Blu-ray came out yesterday. Target had an extra disk of interviews and Best Buy offered a t-shirt. Standard extras include a rather boring minidoc about the soul (It still makes no sense that Sam was alive with no soul), a much-more-interesting “featurette” about Jensen Ackles’ direction of “Weekend at Bobby’s”, commentaries and cut scenes (especially of “The French Mistake”), and the season six gag reel. Much lamentation occurred over the gag reel not being as “funny” as previous seasons, by those with convenient amnesia over the excessive hate they felt for previous season gag reels. Really, if gag reels aren’t your thing, just don’t watch them.
The official synopsis for 7.02 (“Hello, Cruel World”) came out:
“SAM HAS FLASHBACKS FROM HELL — Castiel (Misha Collins) continues to struggle with the burdens that come with his new-fangled power. The broken wall in Sam’s (Jared Padalecki) head causes him to have hallucinations, and he has difficulty discerning what’s real and what’s not. Bobby (Jim Beaver) worries that Dean is beginning to stumble under the weight of fighting Castiel and keeping an eye on Sam. Guy Bee directed the episode written by Ben Edlund (#703).”
Know what would make me like Sam again? Well, for a start, how about Sam going to Dean and saying, onscreen and at length, something like: “Dean, I want to apologise for letting you get turned into a vampire and for completely screwing up your chance with Lisa and Ben. I also want to apologise for making fun of your time in Hell when that Siren got to us. I had no idea what I was talking about then and I wish I still didn’t! I’m sorry I was a jerk.” That would be a huge start. Do I expect it to happen? No. Because, you know, Sam’s Hell was so much worse than Dean’s, dontcha know, that there is no reason for Sam to apologise to Dean or anybody, even though he really ought to be a demon at this point.
Moving on, Dean’s “beginning to stumble”? Bobby’s worried about him? Do tell. The last time Dean stumbled, he had a huge nervous breakdown, tried to say yes to an archangel, and ended up whacking a certain officious and loathsome seraph, instead. Hmmmm.
We also got a new interview from Jensen Ackles. Ackles mostly filled in small blanks about the Big Bads being ancient supermonsters inside Castiel and the brothers’ usual methods of gaining currency failing them. But he did also talk a bit about the episode where Jo returns (most likely 7.04, “Defending Your Life”), when Dean is put on trial by an Egyptian god. Remember how there was a set report that a character named “Osiris” would be in 7.04? Well, Osiris is the Lord of the Dead in Egyptian mythology. He judges the dead and decides whether they’re worthy. Anubis, the jackal-headed god, weighs their souls against a feather in a set of scales. If the soul is lighter, he or she continues on to be presented to Osiris in the Afterlife. If it’s heavier (i.e. with the person’s sins), the crocodile-headed god Ammut, lurking under the scales, devours the soul.
If the show demonstrates any of this with Dean, with any reasonable amount of respect, I will be ecstatic. Egyptian mythology is very intriguing and not used nearly often enough in film and TV. Even the garbled version presented in The Mummy series is pretty interesting. So, let’s hope, especially since this originally felt like yet another excuse for Sam to disappear into his navel (as in “When the Levee Breaks“) and get another clean slate from the writers. Making it about Dean is far more intriguing.
Late edit: The latest issue of TV Guide has a two-page spread on 80-1, and gives the show pride of place on the Friday new season writeup (Gee, that’s a change). Jensen Ackles’ photo looks new, but the only new spoiler is: “Bobby helps buddy Sheriff Jody Mills (Kim Rhodes) investigate paranormal activity at a hospital.” The rest is stuff we already know.
Filming of 7.06 (“Slash Fiction”) produced some set reports, which indicated that the brothers will be arrested in the process of robbing a bank and someone dying there. Also, Michael Hogan from Battlestar Galactica will appear as a local sheriff.
7.09 is now called “How to Win Friends and Influence People“. The title “All in the Family” is gone and 7.07 is now “The Mentalists”, with 7.08 still being “Season Seven. Time for a Wedding!” Yes, the worst title of the bunch so far is still around. God bless it.
Ask Kristin hinted that we would be getting Lovecraftian Old Ones (“leviathans”) that erupt out of Castiel or blow him up. Take that with the usual EW grain of salt, though it does support Ackles reiteration that the Big Bad for season seven will be plural. There’s also a new pic up of Castiel looking pretty rough.
Jim Beaver was at the CW Fall Premiere Party, though he was as cagey as ever about spoilage.
There’s a teaser out for the latest Supernatural tie-in novel, Night Terrors, by John Passarella.
The Winchester Bros. site is running a cancer charity until September 23 in honour of Kim Manners.
Finally, audience numbers were down again for last season’s finale, though demos remained reasonably steady, with a 0.3/1 and 840 thousand viewers.
We’ll be back next week with more spoilers. Stay tuned and check out our reviews of Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Event and Supernatural.
Thanks for the spoilers!
Paula, could you please summarise what the minidoc about the soul says? I’m curious as to how they explain it because I still don’t understand its use in the SPN verse. Does it explain the ridiculous point of Soulless Sam’s not needing to sleep?
I’d love it if the incorporated Egyptian mythology, as long as they don’t butcher it as they’re wont to do to anything that isn’t born from the western culture.
I have a question regarding season 6 and I don’t remember if you mentioned it in one of your reviews, so could you please clarify it for me? Did Castiel know about Sam’s soul missing when he reunited with Dean or did he find out at the same time as Dean? I thought he looked honestly surprised when he realised it.
Thank you
What is with the episode titles? They’re uniformly horrible. I’ll have to watch the JA interview, it sounds interesting. The trial episode also sounds interesting, but somehow I think it will play out much better in my head than onscreen. I’ll be happy if they use the opportunity to prop Dean up, but I have an awful feeling it’s going to result in tearing him down further. That does seem to be the default, after all. Nothing else interests me at all. But I’d love to be surprised.
Sam apologize to Dean for belittling his time in Hell? Yeah, right. But ITA, at this point a long, in-depth, lengthy groveling to Dean by Sam for all his bad actions and narcissistic behavior is quite literally the only thing that could make me … well, maybe not like him so much, since that ship sailed and sunk long ago, but perhaps not despise him the way I do now. I’d take being apathetic about him. But SOP dictates that Sam never have to own up to his crap, so I guess I’ll despise him to the end. Showrunner’s choice.
I hope the “trial” episode isn’t another excuse to tear down Dean, and for once and for a pleasant change be a long overdue opportunity to prop up the character. That would be different and not, you know, redundant.
IA that the titles this year are off.
The “Director’s Journey” extra is better than I hoped. I’m glad it was uploaded to youtube last week.
I wonder if Bobby is actually worried about Dean because Dean is struggling with some very real issues of his own, or is he worried about Dean’s ability to support Sam?
As for the trial episode, I really hope its about buidling Dean up, as a person overall and not just to reinforce the message that Dean’s only purpose in life is that he’s special because he’s Sam’s brother.
I’ve put up a late edit about the latest issue of TV Guide.
@Manto
Misha Collins’ acting and Ben Edlund’s writing in 6.20 heavily implied that Castiel did not know Sam lacked a soul until after he pulled him out, that it was a mistake. However, it’s just vague enough that Sera Gamble could completely change it around to make it as if he knew. Which would be really stupid, but not the first time this show has turned a good character into a one-dimensional caricature.
The minidoc was only a minute and a half long and pretty content-free. Essentially, Eric Kripke claims that not having a soul simply makes you not-human (which completely contradicts the previous show canon that not having a soul makes you a dead sack of meat. Otherwise, what was the point of Ruby hunting up a vacant second host if the host still had consciousness?). Jared Padalecki talks, again, about how Sambot thought he was more awesome than ever before. And Jensen Ackles talks about the overall storyline of the trade in souls. That’s it.
Thanks Paula.
I don’t think I expressed myself clearly though. I, too, understood from 6.20 that Castiel pulled Sam out without a soul accidentally. What I was wondering is this: Did he realise it immediately after and was lying the whole time to Dean, or did he also find out when he did that soulonoscopy thingy? But I agree it is vague enough and some fans already think he did it on purpose so anything is possible in season 7.
You raised an interesting point about Ruby’s host. I hadn’t thought of this before. It is completely contradictory in my mind but I guess they could justify it by saying that along with the soul there’s also something like a “life essence” that keeps the humans alive and when that leaves they’re completely dead, but I find this a reaching and needlessly complicated theory…
Re: Sam’s redemption: I’d rather see Sam grow up some rather than have big apologies this late in the game…and especially “…and for completely screwing up your chance with Lisa and Ben”…I never want to hear those names again! I just feel like the time for Sam to apologize has passed. If the writers ever get past his worst Hell-time ever, moving Sam back to the character in No Point of Return would be refreshing. I don’t know that I’ll really like the character again, but that would help.
Re: Dean stumbling: I really liked the Dean we saw in S2, when he was spiraling following John’s death and I liked him in Point of No Return. That PoNR Dean was lethal in going after Bobby, Sam, and Cas, knowing just which button to push to emotionally hurt them. I’m all for seeing a stumbling Dean if done right.
It’s interesting that it seems SG is going to take our heroes into doing flat-out illegal things like robbing a bank. I’m with others on the episode titles being awful. Still not much enthusiasm for S7, but from what little we know so far, it looks like 7.04 has the possibility of being good, and maybe 7.06 and 7.07 hold some promise.
The episode synopsis for #3 is up:
Supernatural – Episode 7.03 – The Girl Next Door – Official Synopsis
JENSEN ACKLES DIRECTS — Dean (Jensen Ackles) is furious after Sam (Jared Padalecki) disappears to follow a lead on a case with clues that are identical to a case Sam solved as a kid. The demon turns out to be Amy (guest star Jewel Staite), who has been killing low-life thugs and taking their brains for dinner – the same demon Sam found as a kid. Jensen Ackles directed the episode written by Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin.
No words on Sam running away from Dean again and worrying Dean. Just no words.
Oh, yea, a few: so much for Sam’s much vaunted “sensitivity” when once again, he can’t bother to express any towards the brother who has been worried sick about him. And so much for Sam being an adult, when once again he’s acting like a 10 year old who is pissed off Mom and Dad won’t let him go to the midnight concert one state over.
Ridiculous, just ridiculous. And they wonder why Sam is disliked be some people? Here’s just another reason.
@Fates
My first thought was–why the hell are we calling her a “demon” when she obviously is not? Would it inconvenience the writers terribly much to stick their own damned canon, please?
I don’t give a crap about Sam’s angst. I’m mostly watching for Ackles’ direction and Jewel Staite.
@Manto
The answer to your question is that nobody knows. Since the dialogue was vague and most of what we learned was from Castiel’s puzzled expression as Sambot robotically stomped off to do…whatever, there’s just no answer to that. I’m assuming Castiel knew by the time of soulonoscopy, though. He obviously sensed something sooner, but remember that the others who sensed things about Sam didn’t seem to really understand what they were getting from him, either. Sure, the Alpha Vamp was like, “You have no soul,” but with these writers, it probably had more to do with the fact that they’d just sprung that plot turn on us and DIDN’T WANT US TO FORGET IT than any indication of the Alpha Vamp being more awesomely perceptive than an angel. As for the fairies, I don’t expect to see them again. Which makes me sad, but also renders anything they claimed to know about Sam or Dean or the world pretty much irrelevant.
As for the whole Sam’s Soul thing, ugh. It makes no sense and they obviously failed to think it out even to a shallow, strictly logistical level. Ruby’s host was dead. In fact, that was a major point of that horrible episode, that Ruby took over a dead host. Also, there are plenty of times when possessed hosts drop dead when a demon leaves and only reanimate if the demon comes back. And it’s always been stated that that is because the host is *dead* and the soul has departed at some point.
It occurs to me that if Castiel’s vessel (Jimmy) is looking rough because he is only able to handle an ordinary angel and its power, the megacreatures looking to get out do have a handy alternative–two archangels’ vessels. Sam is probably “ruined” for anybody but Lucifer at this point, but Dean is all pristine and set up for an even more powerful being than Lucifer. But I have a feeling we will never see the vessel storyline ever again, despite all the slow-mo recaps of Sam diving into a plothole and the hand-wringing over puir Sammy’s hellpain.
Thanks Paula!
Ugh, indeed about the whole soul business. I wish the show stopped contradicting its canon. But since I heard SG saying at SDCC (I think) that when a plot point or character development became too much and inconvenient they’d drop it, I don’t hold much hope for that. I read somewhere -and please correct me if I’m wrong- that they deliberately regressed Dean’s development in the self-esteem department in season 6 in order to fit in with his storyline about Lisa and Ben (which I found an out of character move from Dean from the moment it was set up).
And thank you Fates3 for the new synopsis. I’m really curious as to how they’ll explain/justify Sam’s disappearing on Dean. Again. It seems a pretty stupid move on his part what with all the hallucinations and the trouble he’ll have distinguishing reality from non-reality, as they keep hammering us over the head all summer. But I don’t doubt for a second that they’ll make it look heroic and wonderful even though it is completely idiotic.
Hi! It’s me again!
Something a bit irrelevant and a little shallow. I just so the TV Guide’s Fall issue and I must admit I’m getting a bit skeeved out with the way they’ve been depicting Sam lately (in photos and in episodes). I think they focus too much on JP’s pectorals and popping veins. They show him in just a t-shirt and JA’s covered in layers. What’s up with that?
It’s from that photoshoot they did a while back. Ackles’ pose is definitely new. Not so sure about Padalecki’s.
“My first thought was–why the hell are we calling her a “demon” when she obviously is not? Would it inconvenience the writers terribly much to stick their own damned canon, please?”
The unabashed straying for canon last season is something that really bugged me (and apparently that is going to continue this season). The issue I have with it is, if you can’t trust the showrunner (EK with SS and EK or SG in S6) and you can’t trust canon, what is left for a viewer to have faith in. The obvious answer in this case is that the viewers continue to watch for the two actors only.
Putting all the heavy lifting on the two actors to keep viewership sure makes the writers job easier. They don’t have to do the simplest of things…like plan out a coherent season or keep their characters in character, or even keep the story focused on the two leads. Ignoring a small thing like canon frees them up to see who can come up with the most far-fetched story ideas, the worst fanfiction, and who can write the most inside jokes in an episode.
Viewers really should be able to trust the canon of a story.
“I’m really curious as to how they’ll explain/justify Sam’s disappearing on Dean. Again. It seems a pretty stupid move on his part what with all the hallucinations and the trouble he’ll have distinguishing reality from non-reality, as they keep hammering us over the head all summer. But I don’t doubt for a second that they’ll make it look heroic and wonderful even though it is completely idiotic”
Hey, these writers are the heavyweight champs on spinning canon to suit their agenda. I have full confidence that Sam’ll come out of this smelling april fresh and as white as the purest snow. I also have full confidence that Dean’ll apologize profusely and at great length for having the audacity to get angry, for being too bossy, and for ever having doubted Sam.That’s just how this show rolls. I think Sam could go on a murdering rampage and it’d still end up being Dean’s fault.
” The rest is stuff we already know.”
I was actually surprised by what the TV Guide article didn’t mention. I think this is the first time anyone’s talked about the new season without gushing all over psychotic Sam’s storyline. This is the second week in a row where that storyline seems to be downplayed; fingers crossed that fan feedback will put move Sam’s epic manpain out of the season’s spotlight. Or else give Dean equal screentime with a storyline of his own- that’d work too.
I’m completely confused by the Show’s use of the words “soul” and “spirit” – are they supposed to be synonomous? If so, then Sam couldn’t have been walking around without his soul, he’d be dead like Ruby’s host, whose “spirit” conveniently left the body of a hot young hard-body just in time for Sam to have sex with it.
I am liking the new season less and less. Thanks Paula for the recaps, but with each passing week, the more spoilers they release, the more turned off people are getting. I can see why they didn’t release too much before. Trying not to turn too many people off too soon.
As for 7.03…Really, why they should claim Dean is ‘furious’ that Sam goes off on his own is beyond me. Why they would write Sam going off by himself is even sillier. That is completely against the ‘brothers’ together cannon they have been preaching about again. Yes, Ackles needed time to direct, but really they could have given more thought to the separation. The way they did ‘Weekend at Bobby’s’ was better.
As for the rest of the spoilers UGH! Totally boring and the pic in the TV Guide issue was insulting too. Once again we have Sam in front and Dean backing him up. Reminds me of the ‘Sam and his sidekick’ comment and AGAIN impales on everyone the fact that Dean has no arc this year, except for saving Sam.
I really hope Ackles doesn’t stay for a season 8. And there are rumors he is already unhappy with season 7. Wonder if he will voice them himself again this year as he did last. Or maybe that is just wishful thinking by JA fans. Really he needs to re-eval his career. And Emmy, which he has the potential to get, will not happen on the CW..especially with him playing a ‘sidekick’.
“And there are rumors he is already unhappy with season 7.” UGH! I had not heard this (but I am not the most informed fan). This just upsets me to no end. I had HOPED that most of the fears that Dean-fans have been having would be unfounded once the season got under way and some close-kept story-arc for Dean would actually be revealed. But if JA is unhappy, that worries me a lot. Can I ask where the rumor came from or what it might be referring to? I don’t do twitter and don’t really look at many boards, so I honestly don’t know.
@Shar
It is still just a rumor and started after the Vancouver con. It may just be the unhappy Dean fans makeing a lot out of nothing, but really Dean fans have had little to be happy about so I can see this snowballing. That’s why I HOPE JA does say something if any of it is true.
For me, as an ardent Dean fan, I really can’t see anything he CAN be happy about as far as the series goes. But, he does have a job and a steady paycheck and the money from the cons has GOT to be huge, and there is the directing bonus he has been getting, so maybe that will waylay any unhappyness he has in the episodes itself.
Only time will tell.
@ Cassioe: RE: 7.03..When I read that, I didn’t like it one bit either thinking, “Well, there’s Sam, doing the same danged thing he alwys does.” Let’s just hope Dean doesn’t apologize for causing him to do that. I’m not watching that episode anyway. I’m sure getting the chance to direct is an honor, but I much prefer to see JA on my screen. I watched WaB, because I loved Rufus…but Sam running off again and doing the hero stuff all by himself…not interested.
Re: Sam and his soulless self. There really isn’t an explanation for it except that it was a way to showcase Sam. My belief has always been that it was SG pumping up the Sam while pushing Dean in the background. By all accounts canon says Sam should have been a demon (having spent a thousand years or more in Hell) and nothing was presented in the show to explain why he wasn’t. What’s even more confusing is that supposedly Cas pulled his body out after only one day, but his soul was in Hell for that thousand plus years. That makes even less sense (doesn’t the body burn up?)
I haven’t heard the rumor that JA was unhappy w/ S7. The few intereviews I’ve seen, he seemed relaxed and pushing the story back to the big bads and away from Dean has no story and the Sam Hellpain thing.
@Ginger…RE:7.03…I know what you mean. I really WANT to see JA direct again, but having to sit through another Sam-Centric episode is making me re-think the episode. From what I hear, Dean is in it more than he was in WaB and also little Colin Ford is in it too, and him I also like. I just wish it was all Ford and no Jared for the episode, but JP siad he was on set for all 7 days of filming 7.03, so he this is going to be WAY to much Sam.
And yea…I also hope they don’t have Dean apologizing to Sam for Sam’s running away again. Really…that character really needs to grow up!
At least if Sam runs away again it makes the Sam scenes easier to fast forward through since he and Jensen’s scenes won’t be together. Thats what I plan to do.
I worry this will carry over to the next episode and it will somehow be Dean’s mistreatment of Sam as to why he’s on trial.
The episode synopsis for episode 4 will be interesting. Dean getting mad sounds like the writers might start to believe Dean needs to learn another lesson in learning to trust Sam.
There is no current evidence that Jensen Ackles is unhappy with the season, and he’s made no bones about being unhappy last season, with no repercussions so far. I think that’s just a rumour started by someone who is angry with the spoilers.
As for why Dean might be “furious” with Sam going off hunting on his own, it’s been stated repeatedly (by Ackles first) that the brothers are in an unusual situation this season where they are being actively hunted by the Big Bads. It would therefore be incredibly stupid for either brother to go off on his own, especially to find someone he knew for a fact was an MOTW. This storyline could go several ways. It could be, for example, that Sam’s excursion and Dean’s trial are unrelated, or even that Sam’s excursion puts the Big Bads on the brothers’ trail and gets Dean captured, making that Sam’s fault. We just don’t know yet.
Well what else has Dean done, but whine and wipe up after Sam. Of COURSE Dean’s being on trial is becasue he has mistreated Sam so much! Dean raised Sam and look how he turned out. Sam lies, cheats, runs away, doesn’t give a rip about family and NEVER appologizes for anything. He gets mad when he doesn’t get his own way and doesn’t trust anyone but himself. He doesn’t know the first think about respect for his brother or apprecaiation for all that Dean has done for him. He doesn’t even understand how Dean’s time in hell was so bad… After all Sam is SOOOO strong he can do anything! Doesn’t that have to be Deans fault? – Already I’m sick about the season.
“At least if Sam runs away again it makes the Sam scenes easier to fast forward through since he and Jensen’s scenes won’t be together. Thats what I plan to do.”
Well, I could do that to get my weekly JA fix. I’d have to FF thru Colin Ford’s scene, too, though. From the clip I saw, Colin will be playing the “I hate my life…I’m a freak and it’s my family’s fault because of what they do” card, and that is as stale as Sam running away.
Paula’s optimism gives me a very slim hope that S7 might work out, but from what I know about this season, and that includes the episode titles and the synopsis’s coming out, I’m pretty sure that S7 isn’t going to be any better than S6 was.