I'm mainlining S1, two to four eps per night. Tonight was Sin City on rerun, and Route 666, which I like, actually. I mean, there's a lot to like there, if I just concentrate on how pretty the Cassie actor is and not how inadequate an actor she is. There's lots of good brother stuff. Plus Dean bed scene.

I skipped the second disc with Bugs and Hookman on it for Disc 3, and then went back last night and watched all four Disc 2 eps: Bloody Mary, Hookman, Skin, and Bugs. I hate Hookman. I don't think it has one redeeming scene, really. I hate how out-of-sequence it feels. Third filmed ep, it has a lot of Dad exposition, and some not-jelled-yet brotherisms, and I just don't like it. Bugs, on the other hand, while incredibly cheesy bug-wise, has a lot of family stuff, plus some really great set pieces that turn up again and again in some of the best vids: the car climbing the hill driving away, Dean and Sam in profile, the positive to the same after-dark pose in Wendigo, and the ever popular Sam popping Dean on the belly as he reaches up to close the garage door.

I find new love and rediscover old love every time I run through several eps in sequence. S2 is up next, and then I'll take my time through S3.

Man, I can't believe you watched Sin City and Route 666 on the same night!

I gave Sin City a miss - my least favorite episode this year and I don't know that I've even watched Route 666 on dvd once.

I guess I'm callous and strange, sumi, I like both of them. I mean, I know they're bad eps, for myriad reasons. But there're good chunks in there. Like eating indifferently flavored ice cream and biting into real fruit pieces, sort of. For the record, I also really like Wendigo. I know, I'm strange.

Why don't people like Wendigo?

I don't dislike it. . . I really liked the character of the sister looking for her brother. (I can never remember the names of the weekly victims.)

For example - I watched the Lifetime airing of the "Capture of the Green River Killer" and one of the characters was played by the guy who played the season 1 psych-killer kid. Do I remember the name of the character? No - even though it got referenced more than once in season 2.

I liked Wendigo. It was so early on in the series that I must have liked it or I wouldn't have kept watching. I liked Route 666 and I liked Cassie.

There really are precious few episodes that I don't like. I either enjoy them the first time through or find really interesting features that make them worthwhile on the second viewing.

I think the fairy tales one this season is the only one that I still have misgivings about. Not because there wasn't a story there...I was just bored with it.

This third season is the season I have enjoyed the least but even last night the episode was better than I remembered. So I think my opinion of season three may improve upon rewatch.

If I had magical powers, I would *heavily* edit Malleus Maleficarum, and the dialog of a few other S3 eps. Otherwise, I love what we've been given.

I do love the suspense and speculation of waiting a week to see what happens next, and I love talking about it, discussing it here and on LJ and reading about it and wondering where the storylines will go.

But there's something to be said for having already watched and then mainlining through a season, several eps a week. I can really see things build and change. I've come to recognize trademarks of writers and directors, appreciate set dressers, props and lighting, appreciate themes I never noticed when the eps first aired. And appreciate the tension a character builds as a season progresses.

I think more tv series will be written and filmed with a sensibility to being viewed several eps at once on dvd, to enhance that sense of continuity.

Oh yes, this season Malleus Mallificarum is another one I dislike.

I just pinged on something else that bothered me about Malleus Mallificarum besides the anti-Paganism slant. It made supernatural evil too pedestrian with the whole book club thing, and that made it feel like another show. Charmed, or late-seasons Buffy.

I haven't seen much of Season 1, but my understanding is it was based mostly on urban legends and things that go bump in the night on the outermost fringes of society. Season 2 had a lot of ghosts and the Yellow Eyed Demon arc. I get that the demon war in Season 3 brought a lot more overt occult influence to the world, but at the start it looked like it was going to be a big mythic clash, with the forces of order and reason being overwhelmed by their opposite. The idea of June Cleaver and Harriet Nelson getting together to cast demon-granted spells and then organize bake sales just goes against the tone and makes it harder to take the supernatural seriously.

MM is one of the two episodes I missed this season, and from everything I've heard, I'm regretting this less and less.

Question: I'm racking my brains, but cannot recall--what episode was it where the boys learned that Mary's friends/family had been killed off?

That was The Kids Are All Right, the one with mini!Dean. And only Sam learns that, from Ruby -- he never tells Dean, as far as I remember.