Top Ten Supernatural Opening Teasers
Holiday weekends and episode repeat weeks are a great time to go back and revive an old favorite that hasn’t been done on this site in a while. Probably because we’ve been WAY too busy with this season. After watching a few episodes from all the seasons recently, I realized that Supernatural has had some great opening teasers. You know, the segment of the episode after any “NOW” rundowns through the title card.
Holiday weekends and episode repeat weeks are a great time to go back and revive an old favorite that hasn’t been done on this site in a while. Probably because we’ve been WAY too busy with this season. After watching a few episodes from all the seasons recently, I realized that Supernatural has had some great opening teasers. You know, the segment of the episode after any “NOW” rundowns through the title card.
I forced myself to come up with the ten I thought were best (yes this was tough) and naturally did two honorable mentions as well, because I always do. Gotta be consistent! So here you go, the totally subjective and unscientific, “Top Ten Supernatural Opening Teasers.”
Honorable Mention: Born Under a Bad Sign
The key to a good teaser is the attention getter that will keep you engaged the rest of the episode. When the tension whacks you in the face in the opening second and the episode keeps that pace, you can’t deny something special is about to happen. I couldn’t catch my breath after a frantic Dean worries about Sam being gone for a week without a trace. Forget when a distraught and bloodied Sam couldn’t remember where he’d been either. Uh oh, was this the thing about him we’ve been warned about? Attention getter!
Honorable Mention: The Pilot
Under close examination, this is just a very well plotted Monster of The Week opening. However, it’s the critical MOTW opening that’s clearly defined this series from the word go. This one pivotal event has spiraled into so much agony, pain, struggle, and triumph for the Winchesters it cannot be ignored. It doesn’t rank higher the others on this list simply because they’ve been given time to perfect the formula.

Alice Jester is the founder, editor-in-chief, head writer, programmer, web designer, site administrator, marketer, and moderator for The Winchester Family Business. She is a 30 year IT applications and database expert with a penchant for creative and freelance writing in her spare (ha!!) time. That’s on top of being a wife, mother of two active kids, and four loving (aka needy) pets.
Very nice article – I throughly enjoyed reading it. I especially liked the contrast between your No. 2 and No.1 choices – just goes to show the amazing scope of “Supernatural”. 🙂
Alice,
I think I love holiday breaks if it means we get fun things like this!!!
I love your choices. This is a great way to have fun with the show by reaching in for the tops of this or that…and to take their top teasers is ambitious for there have been many, many great ones!
Great job, thanks for this.
Alice if all your lists are as good and funny and incredible as this one – share away, hon…
Tks for sharing this one, loved..
Awesome choices! Honestly, I don’t think I could ever pick one over the other, I love all of these opening scenes so much.
Thanks for giving me something to smile about on a Monday morning!
Alice, 1:30 in the morning you are doing this. Wow! 😀
Sorry, but I need to comment on all your choices: 😀
Born..sign: frantic Dean, what a way to start.
Pilot: Now we know the whole story, but to start off killing Mom!
99: You are right, this was the best part of the episode.
Free: Jess returns. But, we know that if someone returns from the dead, it usually isn’t good.(there are some exceptions: Dean, John).
It’s..life: WTF, we left Dean in the hospital, what is with that shirt? (did SUPERNATURAL create the word ‘fugly’ :D)
In..dying: We left the Impala and her men near death, then it gets worse.
Nightshifter: WTF Dean?
Lazarus: We knew that Dean would return, but how?
Monster: Who the heck is Chuck?
Dark..moon: Would you want a pissed off Dean Winchester coming after you?
All..part 2: For all those people who say that Jenson can not act, let them just watch these few minutes.
Changing: WTF. talk about a fugly set.
What about ‘Mystery spot’? Dean is shot, but is he?
Alice, great job. 😀 😀
This is a great list, Alice. Indeed these are all great openers. All perfect in their own right. I can’t help but laugh with the ’99 Problems’ opener. Each time Michael Shanks character tells Dean and Sam, “Those were Demons, and this is the Apocalypse, so buckle up.” That just cracks me up every time. If only he knew, at the time, who he was talking to. Oh, you naive, innocent man, you.
The opener not on your list that I always think of as awesome is ‘Skin.’ The action opens to the song ‘In a Gadda La Vida’ with a woman who has been obviously tortured, the police break in and chase down the torturer, who turns out to be….Dean? If something didn’t get your attention, that sure did. This has always been one of my favorites.
How do you choose from the many episodes? I salute you Alice! This trip down memory lane was fun.
I loved your choices, but, personally, I missed the teaser of Mystery Spot. Dark Side of The Moon always kills me, still. And I love Changing Channels! And All Hell Breaks Loose… oh my gosh!
Love, Jas
I totally agree with your list but there is one tease I absolutily adore which is Swap meat although the epp totally sucked I love Sam’s face when he shows the bartender his ID, asks for a banana daikiri and understands that the cougar wants to have THE sex with him… that was just hilarious!! =D
I would have to agree with others on adding the opening from Skin and Swap Meat, and what blind and deaf person thinks Jensen can’t act?! The emotional expressiveness in his voice and telling nuances of each visual expression, sometimes rapidly running through 4-5 clearly distinct emotions in a few seconds, I would put up against any Oscar winner.
You do believe in setting some pretty challenging tasks for yourself Alice !
Not sure how I would have gone about this but guess that eventually my list would have been pretty similar to yours.
I must confess that Skin was a real attention grabber, and I would have had to include Mystery Spot as it holds such a special place in my heart, also with Jas on DSOTM cannot watch that without jumping out of my skin at that shotgun blast, I know its coming, and tell myself every time ` get ready` but it never works!
Thanks again Ju
Hi Alice
I would have to agree with your picks and the added Skin and Swap Meat(I wish they had let Jared play it that way throughout the episode).
I also found the teaser for ‘A Very Supernatural Christmas’ quite capturing, especially with the boy calling out for Santa after watching him get sucked up the chimney.
And I have to add in ‘Yellow Fever’ with Dean running away so terrified and it ends up being that Yorkie chasing him It left me with one big side splitting ‘WTF’.
Great choices … Such a pretty corpse … 😳
I agree with all of your choices, they’re great openings.
I would never be able to make a top ten list myself, I could never pick just ten openings. 🙂
An opening that I loved and it’s not in the list it’s the one from Swan Song. Well, SS it’s my favorite episode in the history of TV (My second favorite is Mystery Spot) and is really special to me in every way (specially emotionally), so I would put it here, because since the beginning of the ep I knew it was gonna be different and special, with the Impala narration, Chuck telling where the story begins and that it ends there and the heart to heart talk between Sammy and Dean. In that moment I knew that this episode was going to be awesome in every way and I couldn’t get my eyes off the screen for a sec.
Thanks for the article, Alice.
I agree with all of your choices, they’re great openings.
I would never be able to make a top ten list myself, I could never pick just ten openings. 🙂
An opening that I loved and it’s not in the list it’s the one from Swan Song. Well, SS it’s my favorite episode in the history of TV (My second favorite is Mystery Spot) and is really special to me in every way (specially emotionally), so I would put it here, because since the beginning of the ep I knew it was gonna be different and special, with the Impala narration, Chuck telling where the story begins and that it ends there and the heart to heart talk between Sammy and Dean. In that moment I knew that this episode was going to be awesome in every way and I couldn’t get my eyes off the screen for a sec.
Thanks for the article, Alice.