Let’s play a game.  Try to guess which CW spinoff I’m describing: a genre series set in a major US city where factions of “monsters” vie for control, while the humans just try to survive with their unlikely non-human allies.  Clearly this is The Originals, right?

 

That was my first barrier to entry for this backdoor pilot for Supernatural: Bloodlines.  That concept was hard enough to wrap my head around when it was supposed to be the status quo of New Orleans in the Vampire Diaries universe.  For it to also be the premise in Chicago in the Supernatural universe is a harder sell, if only because one would think that all the events over the past several years would have either undermined or exposed the monster gang war taking place.

 

“Bloodlines” felt like the original Supernatural pilot tossed in a blender and given a dash of minority and female representation.  I should be charitable about that, given how criticized Supernatural has been over the years for the lack of diversity, but this felt all too calculated.  Especially when I’m not entirely clear on how the casting process was conceived, given that none of the new faces have the kind of chemistry that made the Brothers Winchester work from the word “go”.

 

Focusing just on the new characters, Ennis (Lucien Laviscount) is effectively the “Dean” of the proposed series, with the typical desire for vengeance, living in the shadow of an absent father.  Of all the new faces, he’s probably the most capable, though he doesn’t quite emote without visible effort.  Dave (Nathaniel Buzolic), the shapeshifter from the family of shapeshifters that don’t “work” at all like those previously seen in the franchise, is actually terrible as the “Sam”.  Half of his dialogue sounded horribly off, and his tone of voice seemed to lack a certain confidence.  Violet (Melissa Roxburgh), Dave’s werewolf ex, is only marginally better.  (I personally liked the awkward and completely unrealistic pose she gave while supposedly knocked out and chained to a post.)

 

What is perhaps most surprising is that this proposed spinoff not only follows in a similar vein to last season’s The Vampire Diaries/The Originals, but also recalls some aspects of the Buffy/Angel spinoff scenario.  And in that case, the comparison is particularly harsh; much of Angel’s pilot was far superior.  On the other hand, it cannot be forgotten that the backdoor pilot for The Originals was easily the worst episode of that season for The Vampire Diaries, and left a lot of longtime fans with a very bad impression of what to expect.  One year later, both parent and spinoff are hitting roughly the same stride.

 

This attempt at a backdoor pilot featured the same hard sell plotting and questionable character/cast introductions, but I still think “Bloodlines” comes out a bit worse.  After phoning it in during the previous episode, it’s shocking to see Jensen and Jared putting in an even less convincing performance with this installment.  The entire production just wasn’t stepping out with confidence and originality, which is hard to reconcile, when there were plenty of ways to create a Supernatural spinoff with plenty of both.