Revisiting "Supernatural" after all these years

I recall when Supernatural first came out and it was a surprise hit. The reason why I say it was a surprise is because it first aired on "The WB" in 2005 and at that time basically everything on the WB was trash and destined for failure. I guess lightning only has to strike a couple of times in order for a network to keep chugging away and Supernatural was one of those bolts of lightning.

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I probably don't really need to explain this one so I will keep this brief. Brothers Sam and Dean Winchester were brought up in a family of demon hunters and they keep the family business going after their mother and later father, are killed by demons. Each episode is kind of self-contained in that there is a complete beginning, middle, and end to each story contained therein, but there is also an overlaying story for each season, as well as one that develops and concludes (so I've heard) over the astonishing 15 seasons that this show was on the air.

Let's take a minute to admire how amazing it is for any show to go on for 15 years. Law & Order, CSI, and NCIS are a few that made it that far, but for the most part series die out long before this mark.

I loved Supernatural back in the day even though I was late to the party and just ended up waiting until seasons were over and buying them on DVD (remember those?) so I guess you could say I was a "binge watcher" before binge watching was really a thing that just everyone could do with streaming. I preferred to wait until the season was over and commercially available than to wait for it to air at a particular time of day on a particular day of the week.

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At the start of season 2, Sam and Dean's Dad sacrificed himself to some demon that we, the audience, don't know a great deal about, in order to save his son Dean's life. This is recapped and build upon in episode 1 but from that point forward they only kind of reverence it every now and then.

This is one strength of Supernatural and probably a big part of the reason why they were able to keep it going for so long. If you join in during any particular episode, you are going tobe treated to a story that honestly, never has anything to do with anything that happened before this episode for the most part. Each episode gives you a brief lead-in as to why the brothers are where they are, and then they quickly get to summarizing how it is they plan to move forward to solve this particular paranormal problem in the little part of American they happen to be in at the time.

Forget about logistics, forget about how it is that Sam and Dean are able to traverse the country to quickly in one of the least fuel-efficient cars of all time and definitely don't concern yourself with how the hell the car is so perfectly clean all the time even though we never see it get washed.

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Here is basically how every single episode of Supernatural works. Dean and Sam are moving on to somewhere in the car and one of them explain to the other why they are going to where they are going. They get into a sibling fight of sorts that gets a bit heated, then when arriving at wherever they were going to investigate they are brought back together by one of them seeing some sort of clue that leads them further on their quest to kill more demons and eradicate supernatural stuff from the human world at all times.

Then they become best buds again while they work as a team to gather the information necessary to find and eliminate this supernatural something or other. There are a few twists here and there such as the Vampire hunter they encounter, not the vampires, being the actual problem, or a spirit that is actually beneficial and therefore they let it go. But for the most part we spend 10 minutes setting up the episode and the brothers arguing with one another, 20 minutes acquiring data that leads to the discovery of the lair of said demon/supernatural other thing, and the last 10 to 15 minutes is spent on eliminating it and the brothers becoming best buds and high-fiving normally over a very sensible amount of beers at a local dusty side of the road bar.

EVERY SINGLE EPISODE

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To many, this might seem a bit boring but to the masses, it must have been just entertaining enough to keep them going. These days, since we are spoiled for choice about what to watch I like to keep Supernatural on deck because even though it is extremely predictable, it is always entertaining. Sometimes they will encounter a legend that you forgot exists, such as alligators in the sewers or a man who turns everything he touches into gold. They come up with something new all the time and I get truly amused when they brothers seem confused by something new but always say "check Dad's journal" which is like 150 pages long but somehow, always has something that is specifically about the very thing they are faced with. I guess Dad was very concise with that notebook.

I believe that Supernatural will go down in the annuls of history as a series that was for the everyman and it doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower to get involved in it. This doesn't mean that you are a dummy if you enjoy it, I'm just saying that for a lot of people, including me, we sometimes just want to switch off and have something entertaining in front of us that is easy to understand.

Supernatural is definitely that and I keep it on my "continue watching" part of my streaming services at all times because of this.

_{You can legally watch this series just about anywhere man. Including Prime, Peacock, Netflix, TNT and AppleTV}