After Adam Glass's tweets and the last few days.

Here’s the thing. He gave a BS cop-out answer. Better to not have said anything. But a few real issues it brought up:

1) The characters do not belong to the fans, the belong to the writers, show, studio, and network. We go by what they show us. They are telling us a story. We are not making it up.

2) As I’ve said, in telling that story they use every standard device that says ‘this is a subtextual or subtle romantic tension build up.’ That is not the audience being kinky. It’s not ridiculous. Mocking fans for what we observe is ridiculous. Slash fiction and that stuff aside, we’re not responsible for their content.

3) They interact with fans a lot and get ideas. Which is awesome as an audience and new and a great way to get ideas and do it. Yes. That’s revolutionary and also dangerous. They get wicked props for breaking all the rules and generally doing it effectively. But while what they say isn’t ‘official news’, it does require sensitivity and awareness of who’s reading it.

4) To say a relationship is ‘too many things to too many people’ to define is bull crap. Again, it’s their content. And they’re not such crap writers that they couldn’t keep a romantic relationship complex, tense, and multidimensional (pun intended).

5) The Doctor and Rose is a perfect example. It was obvious but done via subtext and over time. But eventually the tension was released, and in a complex way that raised the stakes for another 2 seasons until it resolved in an even more crazy way.

6) That worked, and Doctor Who did not become just about them. But the love story added a lot to the show (the lack of intimate emotional stakes is even part of what many people don’t like about Moffat).

7) Supernatural could do the same- be a story that involves a great love story. That’s what got it most of its current audience anyway.

8) If Doctor Who had mocked the audience for seeing the obvious, belittled them as kinky fools, it would not have worked. They confirmed the obvious when it was time and didn’t deny it before then.

9) Supernatural has an added issue of sexuality representation. It’s why I don’t think they’re going to be able to bring it to fruition in any way, honestly. But it’s a missed opportunity to have a relationship depicted no differently from a straight one in this context.

10) So I submit that: It would be ideal to address and resolve it somewhat, even if it remains simmering and unable to be fully realized except for maybe one or two dramatic moments (as Rose and The Doctor made work). But to deny it is bad business and bad tv. Not only is easing and resolving tension good storytelling (it took Rose only 2 seasons and that felt like a lot), this social moment makes teasing out then denying gay sexual tension offensive and annoying.

Everyone loves a great complicated love story built into larger epic stories. No one likes feeling alienated by insultingly mixed messages.