They were angry with the man (TV Update One revisited)

Near the beginning of tonight's Supernatural there is a scene that opens with a caption placing us in "Palo Alto, California." Our hero, Sam, is visiting the grave of his girlfriend, Jess, who was killed at the end of last week's pilot.

Now, I happen to have grown up in and around Palo Alto, California and this looks like no part of it I've ever seen. But that's ok. Sam places flowers on Jess's grave, when suddenly a hand breaks through the dirt and grabs his wrist!

And he jolts awake from a nightmare. It's a totally blatant steal from Carrie, but again, that's ok. Here's what I don't get: His nightmares have placename captions?

I'm still enjoying the series enough to keep watching, but Sherman may have a point when he says

Watching the debut ep of Supernatural, you can clearly see this principle in action. Even the presence of an experienced shadowy director like David Nutter isn't enough to get us invested in the slickly crafted scares on display because we never once care about the show's bickering brothers (Jensen Ackles & Jared Padaleck).

I like the brothers a little more than he does, but part of that may be because Padalecki still has my goodwill from Gilmore Girls. I don't love either of them the way I've come to love characters from that or other series.

And it's true, though as I say I'm enjoying the series, so far it's mainly on the level of action-adventure. I haven't found anything truly horrific yet. Then again, I'm trying to think of the last thing on TV to really be horrifying...maybe the Gentlemen on Buffy, before that I think you gotta go back to the '80s Twilight Zone.

Except for the "Young Man" in the Angel episode "Rm w/a Vu," of course. He was to chill the blood.

(Ignore that, folks, it's an inside joke)