nightwishouge

Watching the series for the first time and this is easily the worst episode so far. I really have a distaste for the Whitelighters and the whole mythology surrounding them. They make no sense and it's clear the writers weren't actually trying to formulate plausible lore; they just want to maximize the relationship drama in every episode and put artificial roadblocks in front of Piper and Leo to test their love.

Early on, Piper was my favorite of the sisters. She was flawed and headstrong in a believable way. Ever since her relationship with Leo has intensified, she's become insufferable. Leo can't even have a work friend without her getting jealous? She is possessive and controlling and it's just supposed to be funny, I guess.

Natalie is a useless character. She's supposedly been a Whitelighter for longer than Leo, but her inflexible obsession with rules make it extremely unlikely that she would have been remotely successful guarding her charges for that period of time. At one point she presents a "plan", written on a single sheet of paper, for defeating the villain of the week; she claims to have covered every possible contingency. In practice, it is revealed that she didn't cover even the most probable contingency and is basically so idiotic there's no way she could function as a Whitelighter for any length of time. The episode is meant to be a thesis on rules vs. Instinct, but the writers present absolutely no case for the "rules" side of the debate and the Halliwells, on the side of instinct, are shown to be infallible. If only the mean ole Elders would stop holding them back with useless rules.

There was a moment in season two when it seemed like the writers were actually interested in giving the sisters room to grow, to assess their mistakes and take accountability for them, to really start thinking in a deep and practical way about the extent of their responsibilities as the Charmed ones. In Season Three we seem to be reverting back to the immature "They're the main characters and therefore everything they do turns out to be correct" philosophy. It would have made a lot more sense for them to learn from Natalie as much as Natalie learns from them, but instead Natalie is just an absurd force of bureaucracy that dictates stupid plans and has absolutely no wisdom to impart.

This is why Buffy is a better show. Buffy is about consequences and responsibility. Charmed is about how everyone else in the world is stupid. (And if they're grown women, they're probably slutty or snotty on top of that.)

Episodes like this are why I will always prefer Are You Afraid of the Dark? To Goosebumps. Don't get me wrong, the latter could be silly fun, but D. J. MacHale was great at expressing mature themes in ways that were accessible to kids.

This is the only episode of AYAOTD? That doesn't have child protagonists (at least, as far as I remember). I mean, I'm sure there have been other episodes where twentysomethings played high school kids, but Dangerous Soup is about young adults trying to make their way in the world. The main character, Reed, is a guy who doesn't seem to have a home or any family to rely upon; in fact, the only authority figure we glimpse in his life (his uncle) is both abusive and now dead. Growing up, in the metaphor of this episode, means not only moving on from your past but also dealing with all the toxic conditions you will encounter as you enter the work force; Dr. Vink literally drains his employees to make his restaurant successful. Neve Campbell gives probably the most naturalistic performance in the show's history as a waitress and possible love interest who shows Reed how to trust.

The supernatural conceit of this episode--that the titular soup is flavored by fear, which is extracted from unwilling participants with the aid of a gargoyle demon--is one of the show's more abstract concepts. With a gorier execution, it could be one of Clive Barker's stories from the Books of Blood.

I loved Goosebumps books from the moment I started stealing them off my sister's dresser, but by the time the series debuted, I had just started to outgrow them a bit. (Camp Jellyjam, which came out the same year of the series, was the first book I read where I thought, "This is kind of silly.") I was only eight, so I don't need anybody to tell me that the series was meant for kids; I WAS a kid. I had been spoiled by Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which had genuinely frightening episodes and dealt with more mature themes, like loss, mixed families, self esteem, responsibility, etc. Goosebumps, by comparison, just has a bunch of twelve year olds acting frightened of their own shadows. I remember wanting the protagonists to be more capable and less scaredy-cat. AYAOTD also had better production value and (usually) better acting.

Still, there is some goofy fun to be had with Goosebumps, especially when the episodes involve monsters. Some of them are so over-the-top and ridiculous that they fall into "so bad it's good" territory. I will forever remember Slappy getting struck by a bolt of lightning and exploding.