Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles make Supernatural worth following through uneven scares and increasingly cumbersome stories. Its early treatment of family grief can hurt; its taste for absurdity keeps the monster hunts companionable.
Supernatural is worth an evening if monster-hunting television is your sort of comfort, though its stories are less dependable than its leading pair. Created by Eric Kripke, it gives Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester a family business with a demanding job description: save people, hunt things. The appeal is easy to understand without pretending every adventure deserves equal affection. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles make the brothers’ company worth returning to when the next threat seems familiar.
We were horrified by the opening image of a mother burning on the ceiling. The position of the body does it: a person is somewhere a person should not be. Grief becomes frightening before anybody has to explain how it feels. Aaron Schneider and Serge Ladouceur’s cinematography is most effective when it makes a familiar space difficult to look at. Michael Novotny’s production design gives that sort of horror a useful domestic scale.
Jensen Ackles supplies much of the pleasure, letting Dean Winchester’s swagger become funny without making his attachment to his brother look foolish. Jared Padalecki gives Sam Winchester enough resistance to keep their exchanges from becoming a routine built around the louder man. Their affection is convincing even when the dialogue works too hard to remind us of it. The regular company has to hold our interest through investigations that do not always offer a surprising monster or a fresh way of finding it.
Tom McQuade’s editing is strongest within the individual hunt, where a quick move from investigation to danger can keep a familiar story lively. Christopher Lennertz’s music gives the threats sufficient weight without being the programme’s most memorable musical ingredient. That distinction belongs to the rock soundtrack, which suits the road trips and the rough humour. The travelling can feel enjoyable even when the next destination promises something unpleasant. These lighter passages also give the horror a chance to catch us unprepared.
The larger stories can bog the programme down, because explaining another layer of supernatural business is rarely as engaging as solving the immediate problem. Eric Kripke’s basic premise needs good individual tales, and the weaker ones depend too heavily on the goodwill generated by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. Some investigations are familiar before they have properly begun. The scares are uneven, too; the opening sets a standard that an ordinary episode cannot always meet.
By the standards of episodic horror, its willingness to be ridiculous is an asset. The pop-culture references and changes of tone make a grim hunt feel companionable without insisting that the audience stop taking the danger seriously. Across fifteen seasons, there is no reason to mistake the sheer quantity for a promise of consistent quality. What justifies spending time with it is the pleasure of a particular pair of actors making this unlikely occupation seem worth doing.
For anyone who needs every episode to advance an intricate plot, the separate hunts may become a source of impatience. They are often what we would come for, especially when a simple threat leaves space for humour and affection. Start for the horror and give the brothers time to become familiar. If their company does not appeal, another supernatural complication is unlikely to change that.
