Supernatural Is My New Favorite Show
Okay, this is old news if you’ve been following the blog, but I’ve been meaning to write up my thoughts on my new favorite show (Supernatural obviously) since I finished watching the fifth season in March. Yikes, I can’t believe it’s been that long.
Now, for those that aren’t up to speed, there are currently six full seasons of Supernatural. The sixth season aired this year and a seventh has been green lit for next fall. At this point, I’ve seen only the first five, because I didn’t start watching the show at all until this year and I’m waiting until the sixth comes out to DVD to catch up.
What I’m going to do now is basically just reflect on my favorite moments, characters, and other various awesomeness from the first five seasons. Spoilers ahead!
The Good Guys
Overall, I think Dean is my favorite character, but this is a bit of a tough one actually. Yes, I understand that there are only two characters (Sam and Dean) that have appeared in every episode of the series so there are really only two likely choices here, but may of the minor characters are also phenomenal. Some of my other favorites include Bobby Singer, John Winchester, and Chuck (the prophet).
However, for me, Dean is the obvious choice between the two brothers. I really do like them both, but Dean is easier to relate to. He’s pretty much a normal dude stuck in a shitty situation. He loves classic rock, cheeseburgers, cars, and the ladies–really a man’s man, if you know what I mean. He’s really pretty hard NOT to like.
The Bad Guys
The show obviously had some awesome villains. Yellow Eyes, Lilith, Lucifer. They were all great villains that you just loved to hate, but I think old Yellow Eyes was my favorite even though, on the grand scheme, he was, perhaps, the least important. The early story that surrounded the death of Sam and Dean’s mother and the acquisition of Sam’s powers was really compelling and Yellow Eyes, having orchestrated the entire nightmare, was the most perfectly evil bastard.
The Story
I’ve tried to pick my favorite season, but I really can’t decided which is the best. I mean, they each have their great episodes and their okay episodes. I’m not even sure if I can really think of any that I would consider to be bad. Early on, there were a lot of “monster of the week” episodes, but that’s not really a criticism as most of the one shot episodes were still really good.
The show didn’t really embrace the larger, underlying story in a significant manner until towards the end of the first season and that’s what really propelled the show forward. That’s what made me want to watch episodes non-stop. That’s what pulled together all of the random bits and odd comments and united them into a cohesive story that had its roots in the ground from the very first episode. It was really amazing to see this detailed, season-spanning story unfold. So yeah, I liked all of the seasons equally, or pretty damn close.
Beginnings and Endings
It’s pretty much impossible to pick just one episode in the entire first five seasons as my favorite, but there are definitely some that stand out. All of the season finales, for example, were fantastic. If I had to pick just one as my favorite, I would probably have to randomly select one of the finales and just call it good enough. However, the season premiers were also very good. In fact, the premier episode of season two where Dean spends some time with a reaper stands out in my mind as a particularly excellent episode.
Humor
One of the things that I was surprised to find about the show was just how funny it could be–I mean some of the episodes were literally roll-on-the-floor hilarious. Among them, the episodes featuring the Jester or the Ghostfacers were probably the most hysterical. Seriously though, almost every episode had at least one comedic moment and I really appreciated that. It was nice that, despite how dark and serious the show could get, there was always a one-liner to disperse the tension.
The Writing
The writing was phenomenal. I don’t think I can fully describe how much I appreciated the quality of the writing. The characters, the plot, the dialog, the humor…it was all so well done. Kudos Eric Kripke and team.
One thing in particular that I loved about the writers was how they would, quite literally, tease their own fans. I mean, Sam and Dean end up having novels written about them in the show and have their own fans. The devotion of those fictional fans, I’m quite sure, was a direct parallel to the show’s actual fans and it was very amusing. Many of those episodes included Chuck (the prophet/author) and I found him to be a great character. In particular, I loved the episode that took place at a Supernatural convention!
Other Awesomeness
At this point, I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job identifying why I love Supernatural so much, but there are still so many things that have been left unsaid, so many tiny little details that helped make the show what it is. This is where I’ll tip my hat to some of those things, because this article wouldn’t be complete without at least mentioning them.
The Impala. The Colt. John Winchester’s journal. The motels. The awesome music. The episode titles. Castiel. Ruby. Jo. Helen.
So yeah, I think Supernatural is a fantastic show. I can’t wait to catch up on season six and dig into season seven. If you haven’t watched the show (and somehow made it through this article) and you enjoy The X-Files or Buffy or just good television, you should get on that pronto.
