The opening episode of season 4 raised Supernatural to a whole new level. The second added missing details to the show's Mythology. The third one was a great Monster-of-the-Week episode. On first viewing, this one appeared to be a great Weird One, but after three viewings, while it still remains amusing, the faults cannot be ignored.
First, to throw to the audience a Weird One, that is *completely* irrelevant to the Mytharc (there isn't even the opening "Then" recap!) *just* when the Mytharc shifted to a higher gear, is ill-judged. At this point, the show shouldn't be doing back-to-back Monster-of-the-Week episodes - at most, there should be one Mytharc episode for every Monster episode, for balance's sake.
Second, a homage to/parody of classic black & white Universal monster movies - no matter how good it is, is likely to remind anyone who's seen The X Files of said show's similarly themed *and* also B&W episode "The Postmodern Prometheus". Frak, this episode even throws in an X Files reference! This actually *is* better than The X Files episode in question, but no way can one say this is original.
Third, the pacing is slow. On first viewing it may not be noticeable, but on further viewings, when one compares this to a typical episode of Supernatural, this seems so slooooww. The old Universal movies are bit slow too, so maybe the writing was intentional for the episode to be "truer" to its origins. In any case, the more one watches this, the more bored one becomes of the tedious bits, anxious to re-see the *great* bits. Simply put, while there are truly classic moments here, as a whole, the episode is hardly classic.
As a proof how a Weird One is made and later considered a classic, see - for example - Angel's "Smile Time", Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Doppelgangland", "Hush", "Once More With a Feeling" and, of course, The X Files' "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'", possibly the greatest Weird One ever (famously the director had to read the script thrice before he fully understood it). Supernatural itself has classic Weird Ones like "The Monster at the End of This Book", "Changing Channels" and "The French Mistake" further down the road! Compared to them, this is "just" good. There's nothing wrong with being a solid 6/10 - that's the most common IMDb rating and much higher than some of the episodes from the first season - its just that there are better episodes in the series.
First, to throw to the audience a Weird One, that is *completely* irrelevant to the Mytharc (there isn't even the opening "Then" recap!) *just* when the Mytharc shifted to a higher gear, is ill-judged. At this point, the show shouldn't be doing back-to-back Monster-of-the-Week episodes - at most, there should be one Mytharc episode for every Monster episode, for balance's sake.
Second, a homage to/parody of classic black & white Universal monster movies - no matter how good it is, is likely to remind anyone who's seen The X Files of said show's similarly themed *and* also B&W episode "The Postmodern Prometheus". Frak, this episode even throws in an X Files reference! This actually *is* better than The X Files episode in question, but no way can one say this is original.
Third, the pacing is slow. On first viewing it may not be noticeable, but on further viewings, when one compares this to a typical episode of Supernatural, this seems so slooooww. The old Universal movies are bit slow too, so maybe the writing was intentional for the episode to be "truer" to its origins. In any case, the more one watches this, the more bored one becomes of the tedious bits, anxious to re-see the *great* bits. Simply put, while there are truly classic moments here, as a whole, the episode is hardly classic.
As a proof how a Weird One is made and later considered a classic, see - for example - Angel's "Smile Time", Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Doppelgangland", "Hush", "Once More With a Feeling" and, of course, The X Files' "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'", possibly the greatest Weird One ever (famously the director had to read the script thrice before he fully understood it). Supernatural itself has classic Weird Ones like "The Monster at the End of This Book", "Changing Channels" and "The French Mistake" further down the road! Compared to them, this is "just" good. There's nothing wrong with being a solid 6/10 - that's the most common IMDb rating and much higher than some of the episodes from the first season - its just that there are better episodes in the series.