Superhero Media: Supernatural - Season 1

I really like Supernatural, but to an odd level where I'm not quite as invested as the "typical" fans I meet. We'll get to this later, but I actually stopped watching at the end of Season 5 (though I have seen a few episodes past that point) because the ending was both so conclusive and so satisfying that I felt no desire to continue. I've heard that the series from Season 6 and onward get pretty ridiculous, but in contrast, the first season of Supernatural is fairly grounded. Yes, the brothers Winchester hunt monsters whilst driving around America, but they readily scoff at ideas that are too ridiculous for even their frame of reference, like vampires, until they have the proof of their own eyes. This first season, in being closer to hyperreal than outright fantastic, isn't necessarily excellent fodder for superhero gaming, being a bit tame for even the Nightstalkers, but the characters and setting are still pretty compelling. 

The lives of the Winchester family are shattered when Mary is killed in mysterious circumstances, launching John Winchester on a lifetime crusade against the things that go bump in the night. Years later Sam, the younger of the two brothers, is at college when Dean turns up saying that their father is missing. The brothers start out on an adventure to hunt evil and find their father once Sam's girlfriend is killed by the very same demon that killed their mother. I'm not a fan of dead women motivating the male protagonists, but I do know that this gets walked back a little in later seasons, also when the boys' mum comes back as a righteous ghost to protect a new family in the house. The other big criticism I have of the first season of Supernatural is that it relies too heavily on ghosts as antagonists, which can make episodes formulaic, with the investigation of the mystery taking centre stage. Other monsters, such as the Reapers and Wendigo are really interesting, but don't reappear and feel a little wasted in retrospect. 

Even with the distance of years and access to streaming, Supernatural remains a pretty solid programme and very watchable. Great guest stars like Jeffery Dean Morgan lift it up and as most episodes are stand-alone this early on, the bad ones tend not to linger. There's not much here that really will stand up for gaming, excepting for a roleplaying campaign with a heavy element of the supernatural (no pun intended). Most of the monsters is are pretty low-rent in superhero terms, excepting maybe the wendigo and grim reaper, both of whom already have representations in comics. The magic gun and daemon trap would fit nicely into Hellblazer and Doctor Strange, so can provide ideas for magic-heavy campaigns and heroes. It was fun going back to this programme, I'm looking forward to watching the next few seasons again.