There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Scrubs came back last week, as did The Office, plus several other unwatchable shows (CSI:NY anyone?), yet somehow American Idol is still dominating my household. Now that Michael Johns is gone, I’m done, because there’s nothing beautiful to look at anymore.
At least we were able to ditch Dancing With The Stars, which has moved to unwatchable territory itself (okay, it never left). The rest of my shows are still absent though, and new episodes from my favorite is still more than a week away. Three of my favorites won’t be back until next season, so I’m finding only minimal comfort from the rest of this season.
Oh, but Supernatural fans, thanks to you, my online adventures continue. After my last article about this vast online fandom, in which I professed that I was only scratching the surface, I got dozens of wonderful messages providing me links to another spectrum of sites, all in hopes that I would find out what I was missing. It’s been another few weeks of wild exploration, and yes, I’ve been missing out on a lot. I offer now round two of Supernatural Online: The Great Hiatus Time Killer.
I should mention before getting started that the number of fantastic places to check out fanfiction and fanart is so large, and the creativity is so explosive, that these parts of the fandom alone deserve their own article. That will happen, probably later next month after the season has wrapped up. Once new episodes start airing next week (can you believe April 24 is getting that close?), I’m going to focus on those instead since the fandom won’t be able to concentrate on much else.
How Did I Miss These Before?
One site in my last report I absentmindedly ignored, and I beg for forgiveness. Every TV network offers forums on their own site, and CWTV is no exception. The Supernatural boards in the CW lounge are very active, and better than most network boards I’ve seen. While some threads definitely skew toward the “I’m not going there” territory, there is some decent discussion there as well.
Also, the CW’s site in general is one of the better network websites (which makes me wonder why the network is so bad). The use of bright green and some weird shade of gold stands out, making the site seem lively and fun (as opposed to the black and grey on ABC), and many of the options on the site encourage online interaction, which is something the bigger networks probably ignore because they aren’t targeting the younger audience. The idea of the music section is great, showcasing songs connected to each one of their shows and giving the option to buy in one click of a button. For Supernatural though, the list is not vast at all, only covering three episodes from season three. There’s another great idea not executed properly. The video player is decent, but there’s still no reason why all episodes from the season for each show shouldn’t be offered, especially with heavy mytharc shows like Supernatural and Smallville. Of course, these episodes can only be viewed by those living in the US anyway.
Another thing I’ve gotten hooked on are screencaps and picspams, because all those shots end up capturing in incredible detail the key emotional moments that define this show. These shots vividly point out the expressions that seemed subtle in the episodes, especially when these characters were experiencing things like doubt, despair, remorse, terror, devastation, bewilderment, angst, facetiousness, and of course, the patented Sam Winchester bitch face. I’ve seen plenty of sites that offer screencaps (many on LiveJournal), but no site gives a better selection of pictures than the gallery at Winchester Bros. There are 1132 files on “Mystery Spot” alone, which is needed for an episode in which every single facial expression mattered. The gallery gives pertinent file information for each picture and offers a slide show feature so one doesn’t have to navigate one by one through all the photos. Unfortunately, those detailed shots made me hate the Pussycat Dolls more (stupid CW onscreen promos). My only validation is that Girlicious is tanking.
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