Gaywatch: Supernatural (2005-????)
Where do I even begin?
I love a lot of things. A lot of things. I’m just one big walking soft spot for the right film or T.V. show. Bring up anything I consider good and I’ll be all swoons and smiles, there’s no getting around it. Luckily, my fangirlish heart is big enough to embrace everything I throw at it. None of these interests are superficial, mind you, everything has a nice little spot in my fangirlish heart. That being said, there’s obviously an upper tier reserved for those rare films/programs that somehow seem to hit a certain nerve. Those works are at a level which leaves me dumbstruck, awe-inspired, and most likely covering my mouth while I cry with my face inches from my computer screen. While I am objective, and nothing is perfect, if you come after one of those franchises, I will take you down. Lost, Battlestar Galactica, The West Wing, 24, Firefly, Torchwood, Star Trek: The Original Series, Moonlighting, all of them shows I literally did not stop watching once I started. Out of those, the one that impacted my life the most was Star Trek. You do not want to get me started on the love I have for that show from episode one right through to the sixth movie. Even as I was watching it, I could just feel how my life had become a little more complete. It might sound melodramatic, but this is coming from a girl who has dedicated her life to the creation of art via film and television, so you’ll forgive me if I’m passionate.
I’m telling you all of this so when I say Supernatural in my next Star Trek, you get my full meaning.
Right as I was starting to watch the show, someone warned me that my heart would get broken six ways from Sunday. Now, I had watched the pilot a few months back and was unimpressed to the point where I didn’t even bother watching the second one, so even though I took what she said seriously I was still skeptical. Silly, ignorant me. I must have been new.
The Premise: Dean Winchester recruits his younger brother, Sam, to come along on the road and search for their father, who’s gone missing. The catch is that their father is a Hunter, seeking out and taking down all things, you guess it, supernatural. Dean is a Hunter as well, while the more college-geared Sam has rejected that life in exchange for a possible full ride at Stanford. It’s only when Sam’s girlfriend is killed in the exact bizarre manner which killed their mother that Sam agrees to give hunting life a shot, and so the story begins.
The Show: Supernatural is what happens when the creator and writers think things through. Oh, other shows write by the seat of their pants until their painted into a corner they have no way to get out of? Fuck that noise. Eric Kripke (creator) has mapped out storylines with accompanying subplots that stretch across seasons. Seasons. What happens in season one directly effects season two, which builds to season three and so on. A thread started in season three may not even be settled until season five. This applies to your main story arcs as well as the minor ones, resulting in stories and character development so rich and fleshed out I barely know how to explain it. ‘Well-crafted’ is a goddamn understatement.
Then there’s the content itself. Family, loyalty, courage, sacrifice, faith, denial, insecurity and more mix with demons, ghosts, ghouls, shapeshifters to make a combination taken to such grand and dramatic heights it almost makes me dizzy to wrap my head around everything. But then there’s the self-aware, self-deprecating parody humor and the trademark silly episodes which come as a welcome surprise and relief right when you need it. Sure, the silly episodes are mostly filler but, while I normally loathe that kind of thing, the people at Supernatural are just so damn clever about it I can hardly argue. They had me on the floor laughing every time, not even exaggerating. How the hell did something with this much quality get on the CW?
For the first few episodes the tone is definitely planted in the horror genre, but for those who don’t like that kind of thing, no worries. It gets less and less full on horror and the show goes on. There’s some pretty heavy gore in later seasons, but it’s nothing a quick covering of the eyes can’t fix. Worth it.
I’d also advise to hang in there for about the first half of season one. It’s completely watch-able, don’t get me wrong, but things don’t really take off until around episode nine. Again, worth it.
The Gay: As if it couldn’t get any better, the show had to go and be gayer than all get out. You’ve probably guessed by now that the main ship is between Sam and Dean, and you would be absolutely right. Yeah, they’re brothers. No one cares. Well, some people care, but thanks to a character named Castiel they can get their slash elsewhere without having to cross the incest boundary. But make no mistake, even if you’re sitting there thinking “EW, I’ll never ship Sam/Dean,” that boundary will be tested greatly, frequently, and incredibly. Remember the heights Kirk/Spock go to in their epic love story? It’s like that, only taken up to eleven.
Also, as unlikely as it may seem, Sam/Dean is dangerously close to being fully canon. I mean come on, when a character says “You know Sam and Dean Winchester are psychotically, irrationally, erotically co-dependent on eachother, right?” you know shit like that didn’t just slide under everyone’s radar while they were off being oblivious. This ain’t the 60s.
And that’s just the very tip of the Big Gay Iceberg. To say any more would venture into spoiler territory, but believe you me: The relationship between Sam and Dean is one fit to be said in the same breath as Kirk/Spock, Jack/Ianto, and any other damn pairing you can think of.
Verdict: A hands down must see. Period.
Show Rating: 9.5 out of 10.
AU/Canon Gayness Rating: 10/10
I love a lot of things. A lot of things. I’m just one big walking soft spot for the right film or T.V. show. Bring up anything I consider good and I’ll be all swoons and smiles, there’s no getting around it. Luckily, my fangirlish heart is big enough to embrace everything I throw at it. None of these interests are superficial, mind you, everything has a nice little spot in my fangirlish heart. That being said, there’s obviously an upper tier reserved for those rare films/programs that somehow seem to hit a certain nerve. Those works are at a level which leaves me dumbstruck, awe-inspired, and most likely covering my mouth while I cry with my face inches from my computer screen. While I am objective, and nothing is perfect, if you come after one of those franchises, I will take you down. Lost, Battlestar Galactica, The West Wing, 24, Firefly, Torchwood, Star Trek: The Original Series, Moonlighting, all of them shows I literally did not stop watching once I started. Out of those, the one that impacted my life the most was Star Trek. You do not want to get me started on the love I have for that show from episode one right through to the sixth movie. Even as I was watching it, I could just feel how my life had become a little more complete. It might sound melodramatic, but this is coming from a girl who has dedicated her life to the creation of art via film and television, so you’ll forgive me if I’m passionate.
I’m telling you all of this so when I say Supernatural in my next Star Trek, you get my full meaning.
Right as I was starting to watch the show, someone warned me that my heart would get broken six ways from Sunday. Now, I had watched the pilot a few months back and was unimpressed to the point where I didn’t even bother watching the second one, so even though I took what she said seriously I was still skeptical. Silly, ignorant me. I must have been new.
The Premise: Dean Winchester recruits his younger brother, Sam, to come along on the road and search for their father, who’s gone missing. The catch is that their father is a Hunter, seeking out and taking down all things, you guess it, supernatural. Dean is a Hunter as well, while the more college-geared Sam has rejected that life in exchange for a possible full ride at Stanford. It’s only when Sam’s girlfriend is killed in the exact bizarre manner which killed their mother that Sam agrees to give hunting life a shot, and so the story begins.
The Show: Supernatural is what happens when the creator and writers think things through. Oh, other shows write by the seat of their pants until their painted into a corner they have no way to get out of? Fuck that noise. Eric Kripke (creator) has mapped out storylines with accompanying subplots that stretch across seasons. Seasons. What happens in season one directly effects season two, which builds to season three and so on. A thread started in season three may not even be settled until season five. This applies to your main story arcs as well as the minor ones, resulting in stories and character development so rich and fleshed out I barely know how to explain it. ‘Well-crafted’ is a goddamn understatement.
Then there’s the content itself. Family, loyalty, courage, sacrifice, faith, denial, insecurity and more mix with demons, ghosts, ghouls, shapeshifters to make a combination taken to such grand and dramatic heights it almost makes me dizzy to wrap my head around everything. But then there’s the self-aware, self-deprecating parody humor and the trademark silly episodes which come as a welcome surprise and relief right when you need it. Sure, the silly episodes are mostly filler but, while I normally loathe that kind of thing, the people at Supernatural are just so damn clever about it I can hardly argue. They had me on the floor laughing every time, not even exaggerating. How the hell did something with this much quality get on the CW?
For the first few episodes the tone is definitely planted in the horror genre, but for those who don’t like that kind of thing, no worries. It gets less and less full on horror and the show goes on. There’s some pretty heavy gore in later seasons, but it’s nothing a quick covering of the eyes can’t fix. Worth it.
I’d also advise to hang in there for about the first half of season one. It’s completely watch-able, don’t get me wrong, but things don’t really take off until around episode nine. Again, worth it.
The Gay: As if it couldn’t get any better, the show had to go and be gayer than all get out. You’ve probably guessed by now that the main ship is between Sam and Dean, and you would be absolutely right. Yeah, they’re brothers. No one cares. Well, some people care, but thanks to a character named Castiel they can get their slash elsewhere without having to cross the incest boundary. But make no mistake, even if you’re sitting there thinking “EW, I’ll never ship Sam/Dean,” that boundary will be tested greatly, frequently, and incredibly. Remember the heights Kirk/Spock go to in their epic love story? It’s like that, only taken up to eleven.
Also, as unlikely as it may seem, Sam/Dean is dangerously close to being fully canon. I mean come on, when a character says “You know Sam and Dean Winchester are psychotically, irrationally, erotically co-dependent on eachother, right?” you know shit like that didn’t just slide under everyone’s radar while they were off being oblivious. This ain’t the 60s.
And that’s just the very tip of the Big Gay Iceberg. To say any more would venture into spoiler territory, but believe you me: The relationship between Sam and Dean is one fit to be said in the same breath as Kirk/Spock, Jack/Ianto, and any other damn pairing you can think of.
Verdict: A hands down must see. Period.
Show Rating: 9.5 out of 10.
AU/Canon Gayness Rating: 10/10