by Jonathan Anderson
SUPERNATURAL
Tuesdays At 8:00 ON WB Channel 23
When the WB moved Smallville to Thursdays they needed
something to replace it and since both Buffy The
Vampire Slayer, and its spin off Angel have both been
off the air for awhile the WB figured it would be a
perfect time for them to launch a new series with the
element that pretty much launched the network. And one
that has kept their film division going for the past
couple years. Horror.
Enter Supernatural starring Jensen Ackles who played
Jason during season four of Smallville until the very
last episode where it was unclear whether or not he
died in the meteor storm (essentially making his
return possible if Supernatural wasn’t picked up) and
Jared Padalecki of Gilmore Girls fame … or disdain.
They are brothers who after being apart for four
years, are searching for their father who mysteriously
vanished. A man who was obsessed with the
supernatural, and made a journal documenting
everything he knew about everything otherworldly. This
journal is all the brothers have has they trek across
the country encountering ghouls and goblins, trying to
figure out what happened to their dad.
Originally Padalecki’s character Sam wanted no part
of the family’s eerie past. He, unlike his older two
brothers, left after high school and went off to
college. However, when Ackles character Dean shows up
on Sam’s doorstep, he has no choice but to follow his
brother into what basically amounts to the family
business by going after their father.
In the first episode a mysterious phone message from
their father leads the Winchester brothers to a
California town plagued by a series of unexplained
deaths. They soon come face-to-face with the local
legend of a Lady in White – a ghostly and beautiful
hitchhiker who wanders country roads by night, luring
young men to their doom. Though they don't find their
father, Dean and Sam discover his journal and try to
decipher his writings for clues that will help them
destroy the spirit. Once the job is done, Sam tries to
return to college life and his girlfriend but finds
the malevolent force that claimed his mother has now
taken Jessica in the same unthinkable way. Fueled by
rage, sorrow and guilt, Sam suddenly understands his
father's obsession. Like Dean, Sam is now totally
committed to the hunt for answers and, ultimately, for
revenge.
Bound by tragedy and blood to their dangerous,
other-worldly mission, the brothers travel from the
Colorado wilderness to Nebraska farmlands and on to
isolated Wisconsin lakes, encountering creatures that
most people believe only exist in folklore,
superstition and nightmares – the terrifying Bloody
Mary, the brutal Native American beast known as the
Wendigo which Dean comments “I’ve never heard of one
being this far west, they are supposed to be In
Northern Minnesota maybe Michigan”, the man with a
hook who haunts Lovers' Lanes and the dark Phantom
Travelers who portend a violent plane crash. As they
follow the clues in their father's journal, the
brothers realize that he has passed on to them all the
knowledge he accumulated during the past 20 years.
What they can't understand is why he has vanished and
left them to carry on without him. Taking up the
mantle of their father's crusade, Dean and Sam hunt
down the evil that preys upon the innocent in the
darkest corners of America.
The looks of the series is very dark and cold, much
like it should be, based on the subject matter it is
dealing with, but although it is a horror based
subject, because it is not a film and instead a
series, it must be much more character oriented, and
can’t rely on just scaring the audience. It must
instead make itself scary enough to be interesting,
essentially it must have a good story that is somewhat
scary but is more about the characters then anything
else. Supernatural is in many aspects revolutionary
because it is the first series to follow around people
living in the modern age, without any superpowers,
special connections or that work for the government,
that are after creatures that are not only prominent
like vampires and werewolves, but also ones somewhat
obscure, but have been discussed during the last
couple decades across America like the wendigo and
lady in white.
