Good news and bad news: The good news is we still had another Supernatural Season 9 interview left to share from this year’s press room at the Comic-Con International in San Diego. The bad news is… this is the last interview we got at this year’s Comic-Con!
This last interview is with Robert Singer, the show’s Executive Producer who has been with the series since the beginning. It wasn’t possible to get detailed spoilers out of him, but we did get some teases at the table.
“Without giving too much away, as Jeremy said at the panel, last year they put themselves above their mission,” Singer told us when comparing Season 9 to the previous year. “That’s going to have a price, and that price is going to affect Sam in a certain way, and it’s going to affect Dean in a very emotional and almost guilt-ridden way,” he teased.
“The arc this year is much more multi-layered than in the past. When we start a season, we try to say, very loosely ‘what’s the movie this year? What’s the story this year?’ A couple years ago we said ‘all right, we’re going to do a season-long mystery.’ Last year was sort of an Indiana Jones quest ‘movie’ for the entire year. This year is very multi-layered; we don’t really have a movie or a story in mind,” Singer explained. “We just have a lot of balls in the air, and a lot of stories that are separate and apart from Sam and Dean, and of course they’ll get integrated into those stories. The angels falling, Crowley incapacitated, what’s going to happen with Abaddon. We have demon on demon stories, angel on angel stories, and the boys are sort of in the middle of this maelstrom. There’s a thing that happens very early on in the first episode that really informs the Sam and Dean relationship, certainly at least through halfway through the season.”
Singer credits the show’s ability to “keep fresh” as the reason he’s stayed on the series for so long. “That’s something that we try to do every year,” he confirmed. “We say ‘all right. How are we going to make this year different than last?’ Or ‘how are we going to develop these characters to a place we haven’t seen them before?’ We’ve kept that ball afloat for 170-whatever episodes. It’s a testament to the writing staff, and good creative people putting their heads together and coming up with new stuff. Last year we were really excited; Jeremy came on, and it was really a shot in the arm for us, and this year, we have a terrific writing staff mostly returning, and our story, we’re really happy with and excited to get going.”
Supernatural Season 9 premieres Tuesday, October 8 on The CW. Read some of our other interviews related to the show!
17 Comments
where the heck is jensen’s interview? you posted everybody else apart the one with the lead, let me guess you follow the same tactic as the shows ptb, let’s ignore jensen, let’s ignore dean & give him zilch, nul, nada to do for one more year. well i’m done with this cr** since mid season 8 & stop watching when once again they drop every possible dean arc, enough is enough & can’t see you’re not better on ignoring jensen either by keeping his interview for last or not posting it at all in the end, done following you site
“Sandra,” give me a freaking break. What a rude comment you leave on a site.
Could it have occurred to you that we were not able to get Jensen at our table? Kind of hard to post an interview with him without getting to talk to him.
Jensen is a great guy, I’m a huge fan, and the mere suggestion that there is bias with the posting is disgusting.
I don’t care what happens this season as long as they bring back Joshua (Roger Aaron Brown). He’s the one angel who can tie everything together, but they seem to be ignoring his existence since he appeared in “Dark Side of the Moon.” BRING BACK JOSHUA!!!
Much as I love Supernatural, for a show that can do wonders with its continuity, it kind of drops the ball on some characters disappearing into the ether. What happened to Heaven in the finale would be a great opportunity to see Joshua again. I’m also still on the “Bring back Adam or AT LEAST mention him!” board.
And I hope (SPOILER) Kevin’s mom isn’t actually dead and makes a return appearance. Lauren Tom was amazing.
Love Lauren Tom…..AND I don’t understand the nasty comments. Why does a TV show make people so angry? I have been a fan of Supernatural from the beginning and the one thing I like most about this show is the equal opportunity that both characters get. In all my years watching this awesome, creative, show I have only had three disappointments (although season 7 counts a bug one). BUT I continue to love the show, the characters, the actors, the writesr, the directors, and Eric Kripke is my hero. I honestly can’t imagine being so disappointed as not watch a single episode. I for one, can’t wait for the start of season 9. I look forward to a season 10….and then I look forward to seeing Jensen and Jared on the big screen…because that’s where I want to see them.
This sounds bad. Something is wrong with Sam…again…for the 9th season. Dean is emotional and guilt-ridden…again.
Why won’t the show write Sam as just a regular character anymore? It seems to me that no one likes regular boy and human Sam. Unfortunately, however, by always making something have to happen to Sam, I think Sam has become a charicature.
On the flip side, why won’t the show write a storyline that is about Dean? Why is Dean always worried about and supporting the other characters’ storylines?
Shouldn’t we wait to find out what they actually have planned before judging it for leaving any particular character out?
Craig – are you responding to me? I can’t tell because of the way the replies are structured/formatted.
If you are responding to me, then I disagree that I’m judging the show for leaving “any particular character out.” Singer is saying here that Dean is making a decision about Sam, so the storyline is not about Dean, it’s about Sam. That’s what my last line was about.
My comments are based on past history and based, not just on Singer’s comments in this interview, but also what we got at SDCC from Jeremy Carver, Jared and Jensen himself. When Jensen was asked about a storyline for Dean, he either joked about driving the car, hanging out or he flat out said he didn’t know about anything. The last half of Season 8, Dean was a “guilty cheerleader” (that’s what Jensen at SDCC called Dean’s role). So, Dean was just there to support Sam and “cheer” him on in Sam’s storyline.
“keep fresh”?
This is the version 9.0 of “have something wrong with Sam” and Dean being again the “cheerleader guilty” as Jensen said on CC.
Dean is being leaving out from mytharc since the end of 5 season.
And i would love to have the expectative to hear something about Dean, but spn had nothing planned to Dean – who is boring – in Carver’s words – in the last 3 years! Even the purgatory was kicked out in a few chapters and nothing, nothing was left to Dean from there. Carver leaves it clear when he not even talk about Dean in interviews from last season, even when he was directly asked about Dean, and only about Dean, he turned in a answer about Sam.
Carver and Singer doesn’t let any doubts that nothing gonna change.
Good interview. I’m looking forward to season 9 and hope to hear about past characters, Joshua being one of them. Don’t understand the complaints regarding Dean, Jensen Ackles isn’t complaining. He said he’s highly protective of his character and I never heard Carver say Dean was boring.
This is the most depressing interview I have read to date. Get on with what story Singer? — the one about Cas, the one about Crowley, the one about Abbadon, the one about fallen angels???? Basically, Singer is saying the brothers will be eye candy to support character stories. The Show did that in S7 and most of S8. Dean has a secret, Something’s Wrong with Sam V.9, Dean fights a pigeon and sleeps with a girl he slept with when he was 15, and Sam wants to cure demons. Absolutely riveting….NOT. Every single interview and spoiler that has come out since Comic Con has left we sorely disappointed and uninterested.
Totally have to agree with you, Lily, but then Singer apparently thinks he has a terrific group of writers and yet not one of them have the ability to sit down and watch the show before putting pen to paper, write a real person, not a caricature, or manage to keep a plot-thread in their heads for the 45 minutes it will appear on screen. So … hmmm … Singer, not so terrific.
And there’s still S10 to consider. Singer has made no bones about preferring the MOTW format, which neither provides a reason for the Winchesters to slog on together nor any character development. Of course, Soulless Sam and the Levis “mytharcs” – term used extremely advisedly – didn’t extend to character development either. Sam’s head has disappeared up his ass further in S8 than it was in S7, Dean is still vacillating, although now, apparently he’s become comfy enough with his caring side to carry around thermometers and attempt to nursemaid his brother. I believe Sam’s indignation on Chuck’s visions in S4 revolved around the fact that Dean would “use bar-rags before he put a pink, flowered band-aid” on a wound. How does that scan for characterisation, folks?
Let’s sack up and face it, it will be another year of atrocious and illogical writing, most likley trashing the existing canon in the series, creating torturous viewing for those who try to watch JA and JP justify their characters dialogue, action and feeling against scripts that were written by those limp writers who write themselves instead of the characters. You heard it here first.
Craig Byrne said: “Shouldn’t we wait to find out what they actually have planned before judging it for leaving any particular character out?”
I definitely will! I will wait till midseason, then watch the episodes over a weekend if I hear there was a good story all around and Dean and Sam and Castiel all got a good storyline. If I hear otherwise, I will judge!
Too bad you guys got a Singer interview – instead of a Jensen one. Singer is the most boring showrunner ever.
Thanks for the interview, Craig. I know it’s frustrating for you to read the negative comments but I kind of get where those fans are coming from. I was also pretty upset when Dean went from being badass in Purgatory and the early part of the season to the pretty passive cook/nursemaid/cheerleader in the second half. And when the most the show runners can say about Dean is that he’s feeling guilty (again) over a secret about Sam (again), it feels like they’re not even trying to find anything interesting for the character anymore. They don’t have the same problem when they talk about the cool stuff they have in store for Sam, Cas, Crowley, Abaddon….. Honestly? Ever since Kripke left, I’ve felt like show runners are bored with lowly human Dean and don’t have much investment in him anymore. So Dean gets filler epsiodes and helps prop up the other characters’ stories while Dean’s own storylines barely get any attention. But I’m going to do as you suggested, Craig, and give it to midseason. Maybe this season will turn things around and let Dean do more than just emote.
seriously? find it hard to believe you could not get him to talk to you, he’s a damn lead not a co star or something, although tptb treat him as such. & btw watched at least 3 interviews posted by different blogs/sites who where exactly the same, that means 3 or 4 bloggers-reporters per table & you did’nt manage to talk specifically to him but everybody else? awkward the least & btw you could say it somewhere that you did’nt manage to talk to him not post everything else 1rst & keep fans waiting for nothing.
jensen is constantly ignored no matter what fans & tptb say, as for the show consistency & continuity went out of the window long time ago but s8 was the top of it add to that the constant ignoring of dean=jensen & there is no freaking reason to watch anymore, btw totaly agree with lily, L.L. & totalydisapointed, personally done watching but will continue commenting to back jensen up since i hate discrimination especially when good & talented people are sidelined for others who dont deserve it period. let’s hope that the overexposure of portaying the same character for so many years (+in a genere show) without doing anything else will not damage jensen’s carrier in the end
Sandra – I’m sure Jensen’s “carrier” will be fine.
The fact that he’s the lead actor of the show may be the very reason we were unable to get him, he’s in demand and probably was in the video press line longer. On the same note, I’m sure there are tables that didn’t get Jared.
There were actually 7 or 8 people at my same table, and none of us got Jensen. Did you criticize them for not talking to him, too? At no time did we ever promise that we had Jensen, nor should we have to… it’s a fact of the matter when covering a press room that we’re not going to get everybody, and it shouldn’t be expected that a media outlet is able to get everybody. For the Vampire Diaries, we didn’t get Paul Wesley. Does that imply a anti-Stefan bias? Or Once Upon A Time, no Jennifer Morrison. Same deal. They’re leads too. The studio publicists work REALLY hard to get interviews for us, and to get everybody to every table, but it doesn’t always work out the way everyone would like. With that said, the Supernatural room was one of the most efficient there. It just didn’t work out to get Jensen, that’s all.
There were – I think at least 5 roundtables at Comic-Con. Why don’t you go to any of those places that did actually get Jensen? It wouldn’t bother me. I’m just trying to give the readers here the best and the most that they can and I’m sure the time will come when I get Jensen and not Jared. It just works out that way sometimes.
I’m a huge fan of Jensen. I’d love any chance to talk to him, and I’ve posted multiple interviews with him in the past. So I’d like to think one would know going in, unless there’s a delusional paranoia that a media outlet is out to get him and destroy his career or something, that the members of the press like him. He’s a great guy. very talented, and I’m hoping for good things for Dean.
See, we got him here last year: