Supernatural Complete Series
Bridgette Kubis
Warning: If you have not seen season 15, do not watch Supernatural: The End of the Road because it shows how the series ends in all its glorious detail. I was a little disappointed in this but quickly got over it when I realized this particular special feature talks solely about the last season and especially the final episode. You are probably safe with Supernatural: The Long Road Home because it goes over the road to the series finale and I think is actually meant to be watched before the finale anyway.
No boxed set would be complete without a gag reel and this one is no exception. For a show that has such a serious undertone, it was nice to see the crew having a few laughs with each other during filming.
15 seasons, 327 episodes and over 13 000 minutes, Supernatural is one of the longest running and popular American TV shows. Ever since its debut in 2005, Supernatural captured the hearts of fans and now, after going out in a blaze of glory, the complete series arrives in a glorious box set for fans to own.
Supernatural focuses on Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles), a pair of demon hunting brothers. At the beginning of season 1, Sam is away in college when Dean comes calling. Sam has taken a clean break from the family business of hunting monsters, but when their dad John (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) goes missing and the same demon that killed the brothers' mother kills Sam's girlfriend Jess, Sam is forced back into action.
Not everything works though. Some episodes tug at the heartstrings and offer something to think about after the credits roll, but some just fall flat and Supernatural is often too formulaic for its own good. Season 7 is wildly regarded as the series' worst and it's roughly around here that Supernatural failed to reinvent itself, rendering itself a little stale in the process. But there are always highlights within each season and while many consider the series finale lacklustre, Supernatural is still a very entertaining horror show.
The new box set comes with plenty of extras to satisfy the fans of the show. Not only is the box itself gorgeous, it comes with a nifty little book of all the episodes and curated song choices. Each individual season also includes extras, often documentaries and behind-the-scenes -looks as well as the much-loved gag reels, one of the funnier ones in the game.
If you are a fan of Supernatural, the new box set is a must-have, but as a whole the series might become too convoluted and meta for the more casual viewer during the later seasons. Despite a beautiful goodbye and a great ride, Supernatural is wildly inconsistent in quality, but its beating heart is the performances by Ackles and Padalecki.
Supernatural is an American television series created by Eric Kripke. It was first broadcast on September 13, 2005, on The WB, and subsequently became part of successor network The CW's lineup. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings. Along with Kripke, the series' executive producers included McG, Robert Singer, Phil Sgriccia, Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver, John Shiban, Ben Edlund, and Adam Glass. Former executive producer and director Kim Manners died during production of the fourth season.[5] The series was produced by Warner Bros. Television, in association with Wonderland Sound and Vision.
The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, and surrounding areas. It was in development for nearly ten years, as creator Kripke spent several years unsuccessfully pitching it. The pilot was viewed by an estimated 5.69 million viewers,[6] and the ratings of the first four episodes prompted The WB to pick up the series for a full season. Kripke planned the series for three seasons but later expanded it to five. The fifth season concluded the series' main storyline,[7] and Kripke departed the series as showrunner.[8] The series continued on for 10 more seasons with new showrunners, including Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver, Robert Singer and Andrew Dabb.[9] With its eleventh season, Supernatural became the longest-running American live-action fantasy TV series.[10] The series was renewed for a fifteenth and final season that consisted of 20 episodes,[11][12] and premiered on October 10, 2019.[13] The series concluded on November 19, 2020, with 327 episodes aired.
Before bringing Supernatural to television, creator Eric Kripke had been developing the series for nearly ten years,[15] having been fascinated with urban legends since he was a child.[16] He had originally envisioned Supernatural as a movie.[17] He later developed it as a TV series and spent a few years pitching it before it was picked up by The WB.[18] The concept went through several phases before becoming the eventual product, shifting from the original idea of an anthology series to one of tabloid reporters driving around the country in a van "fighting the demons in search of the truth".[16][19] Kripke wanted it to be a road trip series, feeling that it was the "best vehicle to tell these stories because it's pure, stripped down and uniquely American... These stories exist in these small towns all across the country, and it just makes so much sense to drive in and out of these stories."[16]
As he had previously written for The WB series Tarzan, Kripke was offered the chance to pitch show ideas to the network and used the opportunity for Supernatural.[17] However, the network disliked his tabloid reporter idea, so Kripke successfully pitched his last-minute idea of the characters being brothers.[20] He decided to have the brothers be from Lawrence, Kansas, because of its closeness to Stull Cemetery, a location famous for its urban legends.[21]
When it came time to name the two lead characters, Kripke decided on "Sal" and "Dean" as an homage to Jack Kerouac's road-trip novel On the Road. However, he felt that "Sal" was inappropriate for a main character and changed the name to "Sam".[14] It was originally intended for the brothers' last name to be "Harrison" as a nod to actor Harrison Ford, as Kripke wanted Dean to have the "devil-may-care swagger of Han Solo". However, there was a Sam Harrison living in Kansas, so the name had to be changed for legal reasons.[22] Combining his interest in the Winchester Mystery House and his desire to give the series the feel of "a modern-day Western", Kripke settled on the surname of "Winchester". However, this also presented a problem. The first name of Sam and Dean's father was originally Jack, but there was a Jack Winchester residing in Kansas, so Kripke was forced to change the character's name to John.[22]
Kripke had previously pitched the series to Fox executive Peter Johnson, and when Johnson moved to Wonderland Sound and Vision as president of TV, he contacted Kripke.[24] Johnson soon signed on as co-executive producer, as did Wonderland owner McG as executive producer, with the production company set to make the pilot episode. Before it could be filmed, however, script issues needed to be dealt with. Originally, the brothers were not raised by their father, but rather by their aunt and uncle. Thus, when Dean comes to Sam for assistance in the pilot episode, he has to convince him that the supernatural exists. However, Kripke realized that this made the backstory too complicated and reworked it with Peter Johnson so that their father raised them to be hunters.[25]
The script went through many additional revisions. One of the original ideas was for Sam's girlfriend Jessica to be revealed as a demon, which prompts him to join Dean on the road; however, Kripke felt it was more appropriate for Sam's motivation to be Jessica's death, so he had her killed in the same manner as Sam's mother, making them the "right bookends".[26] Other revised concepts include Sam believing Dean to be a serial killer who murders their father[27] and their father dying in Jessica's place.[28] Filming for the pilot episode was greenlit after director David Nutter, who previously had worked with Kripke on Tarzan, signed on.[29] When the series was eventually picked up, the studio brought in Robert Singer as executive producer, as it wanted Kripke to work with someone with production experience. Due to his previous work on The X-Files, co-executive producer John Shiban was also hired to help design the series mythology.[30] Kripke had the series planned out for three seasons but later expanded it to five[31] and hoped to end it there on a high note.[32]
The staff for the first season consisted of Kripke and five other writers, with assistants to help with researching urban legends.[17] Most of the work done in writing the series is very collaborative, with the writers often breaking up into groups. At the beginning of each season, the writers are brought together and pitch their ideas, which are then assigned to a specific writer to be developed. Each story idea is outlined on a dry-erase board, with Kripke and Bob Singer making necessary changes. Afterward, the script is written,[33] and Kripke goes through it to make sure it has the same tone as other episodes.[17] Kripke found this task very difficult to do in the first season,[34] but he felt it became easier by the third season, as the staff came to "really understand the show's style".[34] Following the fifth season, Kripke stepped down as showrunner but maintained his connection with the series as an executive consultant. In a 2016 interview with Collider, he responded to the question as to how involved he still is with the show with the answer, "I would define myself as a proud parent who has sent their child off to college."[35] He elaborated on this analogy, explaining, "I'm there if they need me, I'm happy to help, but I also stay out of their way if they don't need me."[35]
According to creator Eric Kripke, the show originally was intended to focus on the weekly monsters, with Sam and Dean Winchester merely being "an engine to get us in and out of different horror movies every week".[37] His sole desire was to merely "scare the crap out of people".[38] However, a few episodes in, Kripke and executive producer Bob Singer noticed the onscreen chemistry between Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. This revelation caused them to change the series to focus more on the brothers than the monsters, basing the weekly monster around the storyline they wanted for the Winchesters. According to Kripke, "Sometimes we don't even have the monster until way late in the break, once we get all the angst and the drama done first."[37]
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