The Show Also Regularly References The Night Of The Week It Airs On, And ‘Mystery Spot” Originally

Humans Are Weird

So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather? 

What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving. 

=rainofhell:

1. I was under the impression that Dean was the main antagonist.

2. How is the mark of Cain not a new plot idea.

3. There probably isn’t much Dean-Castiel interaction because the destiel shippers keep shoving it on the actors and then accusing the writers of queer-baiting when they do interact, so you only have yourselves to blame.

4. I actually agree about Charlie, though apparently felicia day filmed for 10.23 so she might be coming back.

The ratings trends are interesting but reasoning that the decline is a direct result of writing choices in this case ignores the reality of how switching nights after a late-season hiatus of a month (something that has never been done before with Supernatural) killed the ratings. Since switching to Wednesdays, the ratings have actually been pretty consistent (around 1.7 mil), though about a half million less than we had on Tuesdays (around 2.2 mil).

Keep in mind also that The CW is more interested in the A18-34 demographic rather than these total viewers numbers or the A18-49 ratings which get widely distributed. One can only guess that they follow the same trends. Also, the networks get detailed breakdowns of viewers in a variety of different demographics so they know who is tuning in (or tuning out) each week.

As I understand it, Supernatural was moved to Wednesdays to give iZombie a chance at higher ratings do to a higher rated lead-in and less competition on Tuesday nights vs. Wednesday nights.

Heads up, Supernatural Showrunners: Season 10 is losing viewers faster than ever before in the show’s history

So, Dark Dynasty was the worst-rated episode ever in Supernatural’s history. I was adding that data point in to my little graph of Live+SameDay ratings that I post regularly to fandomnatural, because I am a geeky little PhD nerd like that, and I noticed a few things. First off Supernatural’s seasons always tend to lose some viewers across the season - that’s normal - but usually at a gentle rate. For example look at Gamble’s seasons in green, below. Ratings for her seasons weren’t that great but at least they were somewhat consistent. There was a nice gentle downward slope…  like a condor sailing down on a gentle breeze… 

As opposed to Carver’s three seasons, which bounce up and down like a pigeon caught in a hurricane. There’s first a huge bounce upward in week 2 of season 8. This happens to be exactly the week when the first crop of Netflix viewers would have caught up to the live show. Netflix has been feeding viewers steadily to the live show ever since, but there’s still a lot of bounces. Most of these are attributable to certain events like: Jared Padalecki’s Bieber twitter fiasco, Misha Collins’ directorial debut, Fan Fiction and the bounce it caused the following week, and of course the “Castiel and Dean actually have a conversation” lunch date promo (which resulted in the best ratings in nearly a year, and the best of all of season 10.)  The overall trend was: fans might check out for a while but they were willing to check back in when something caught their attention.

But the Carver ratings pigeon appears to have died in the middle of S10. Shortly after that Castiel/Dean lunch date promo, the ratings switch from erratic bouncing to a sudden steady downward slide that is unusually steep. This has given S10 dramatically increased variation in average ratings:

This seems to be because there was a sudden switch in ratings in the middle of the season. (the moment the Carver ratings pigeon died and began plummeting like a rock)  Check out S10′s massive drop in average # viewers per episode before vs. after the Christmas hiatus. Something changed as the show came out of that hiatus:

These numbers are still preliminary because S10 is not quite done, but this a huge drop. (note I have excluded the last two episodes from every season, so as to enable fair comparison to S10, which still hasn’t aired its last two episodes.) But it’s clear that right now, Supernatural is losing viewers more rapidly than at almost any other time in the show’s history. (exceeded, very slightly, only by season 1 when the show was still finding its legs, and finding its fandom.) 

So, what’s so different about Season 10? Several things:

- No antagonist / no greater good to fight for; “personal journey” approach; less emphasis on Sam/Dean as heroes

- Extremely slow plot progression and lack of new plot ideas: “accordioning out” of S9′s Mark of Cain plot to stretch over 1.5 years, rather than a new plot

- Extreme reduction in interactions, conversation and friendship between Dean and Castiel. (Whatever you’re trying to do here, CW, you’re doing it wrong)

- Too many “family/friends” lost w/o compelling replacements; most recently, death of the character who was supposed to represent the fandom (I know this only just happened, but there was such an instant outcry that it may have affected west coast viewership and same-day ratings). 

Message to the showrunners and to CW execs: Look at your numbers. Something is going very wrong with Supernatural and you need to fix it.

- 

Guys. I just realized something.

I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING.

In this scene in DH part II, Harry, Ron and Hermione are just running around doing shit. Until now, I thought it was rather pointless and that they just took it in the movie to add some action. 

But then.

I REALIZED SOMETHING.

Okay, in this order, it happens.

First, a giant, ugly creature tries to kill them with a large weapon. They hide behind a pipe.

Second, there are spiders. Loads of ‘em.

Third, there is a werewolf.

Then, there are dementors.

In that particular order.

Still don’t get it? We’ll take it again.

FIRST, A GIANT, UGLY CREATURE TRYING TO KILL THEM WITH A LARGE WEAPON AND THEY HIDE BEHIND A PIPE.

SECOND, THERE ARE SPIDERS. LOADS OF THEM.

THIRD, THERE IS A WEREWOLF.

THEN, THERE ARE DEMENTORS.

THIS SCENE IS A PIECE OF ART AND IT IS SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT THEY HAVE ALREADY BATTLED AND NOW THEY DO IT AGAIN IN A SECOND WITH A SMALL SPELL AND IT SHOWS HOW MUCH THEY HAVE BEEN THROUGH AND HOW MUCH THEY HAVE GROWN.

thank you and goodnight

Jensen’s face in the first gif is the best. He is like, OMG! Finally! Y’all can acknowledge my pain (x). 

brain: it seems like problems are happening. would you like to pretend they're not & think about fictional characters instead

me: yes please

how did jk manage to write ootp and not come to the conclusion that the only career w any true meaning for harry james potter was as a goddamn professor at hogwarts like how do u write the da scenes and say “nah he’d want to be a wizard cop”

talking about Rosie The Riveter, fun fact: while the We Can Do It picture has become the most-well known depiction of her in modern times, it wasn’t really a famous image when it was made–in fact, it wasn’t even intended to be her

the most famous depiction of Rosie The Riveter during WWII was probably Norman Rockwell’s painting 

note what she’s resting her foot on

Currently.

*whispers* if Shakespeare could pass the bechdel test despite writing in an inherently patriarchal and routinely misogynistic society then you, modern day writers, have literally no excuse

#shakespeare #bechdel test#feminism#u know shit's fucked up when a 16th/17th century dude is doing v simple equality better than u#my thought for the day