Hats Off To Supernatural and Its Captivating Fans
Thursday, Supernatural will go where few television shows have gone before: The 100 episode mark. That is a MAJOR milestone for any series, let alone one on such a small network as the CW.
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Many deserve credit for such a triumph, most notable the tremendous acting of Jensen and Jared, Jim Beaver, Misha Collins, and all the incredible supporting actors and cast, many of which have been named for entertainment awards. I especially have been impressed with the incredible child actors they have casted, not the least of which is Colin Ford (young Sam), and Nicholas Elia (Ben).Â
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However, even with all the creative acting, writing, and directing talent the show had, it continued to fly under the radar of industry recognition, until 2010 when it won the People’s Choice Award for the best TV Sci-Fi / Fantasy show, beating out the shows Heroes, Lost, The Vampire Diaries, and True Blood. That could not have taken place without the tenacious and dedicate support of fans, which has been the backbone for the series, and for that, they deserve to take as big a bow for the series 100th episode as everyone else.
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For this fan, my fascination started when I rented the Supernatural DVD set from NetFlix in the early summer of 2007. At that time, I didn’t even realize it was a TV show, just a paranormal movie about brothers looking for their dad. The paranormal has always had a soft spot in my heart, and I can’t tell you my thrill when I played the first set and saw two hunky brothers fighting all sorts of ghosts and goblins. And the car!! Good grief….that was such a plus! I have an affection for classic cars, and constantly thought what a waste to let them sit in garages and only appear at classis car shows.   Here, they were actually using one, and so well did it fit in with their ‘job’. I was HOOKED!
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The brotherly interactions were priceless for me, and the season blew me away. I quickly looked up the series and started watching the summer reruns of season two. The first week I saw the brothers alive and well, but the first few episodes I watched, didn’t include the impala, and I was so worried they had not carried it over into season two.  So glad I was when I saw it back on the road with them.
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I purchased the season two DVD set the day it was released, by that time I already had the season one set of course, and watched it in one weekend right after the third season premier.Â
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My captivation with the series didn’t end there. Never before had I been interested in reading about a show on the net, looking up fan sites, and entering message boards. THAT was a real eye-opening revelation. I found such a broad range of personalities caught up in the show, some with very different concepts of the series, but a very enthusiastic, loyal, large and vocal group they were.  This is what has driven the series to its 100th episode and hopefully the series will continue to rack up the years. (For anyone interested, the 200th episode of a series usually occurs in season 10. I sure hope Supernatural makes it that far!)
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Eventually I drifted to this site and found an atmosphere of interest, friendship and intellect not seen anywhere else. So much so, that writing articles for Alice’s site just seemed like a natural evolution for me and the show.
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I feel the fan base for this series is remarkable and I’m very privileged to count myself in this tremendous group. I have no idea how this season will end, but for this fan, my fascination for the series will not change even after the show retires. They are no longer flying under the industry radar. The series will easily go down in the archives of TV land as one of the best Sci-Fi shows ever made. It is  now getting the accolades it deserves, and hopefully with that, will come Emmy awards for the series and its actors. Lord knows it is seriously over due.
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KUDOS to the series for its 100th episode, and KUDOS to fans for making it all possible!
Hi Sablegreen
It’s fun and interesting to hear how other fans found the show.
Even how they came across certain websites.
I’m with you with the KUDOS to the show and it’s 100th episode.
And KUDOS to the fans that have helped kept this show alive.
I sure hope those ungrateful Hollywood types realize that without us fans, they’re nothing! Greedy, no-talent douchebags!
Oh, go Supernatural, go.
I love hearing how others got into the show! Thank you for sharing your story. The Supernatural fanbase is awesome (not that I’m bias or anything ;-)). It’s really great that they are starting to get the proper recognition – though I do enjoy our cult-like status too.
Thanks Sablegreen. I second Karen and Elle’s comments – really interesting to hear how other people got into the show. Bizarrely, I am not entirely sure how I got into it! But twas about the same time as you.
‘Hi. My name is magichappening and I am a Supernatural-holic’…
I do remember in 2007 I came across Hollywood Babylon on TV here in the UK and though I appreciated the aesthetic appeal 😉 was not that sold on the episode – like someone else on this site said – it was not love at first sight. But somehow (and this is where my memory blank kicks in) over the course of the summer that year fell hook, line and sinker and ended up watching the box sets of Seasons 1 and 2 over and over – think Faith was the tipping point for me – and by September I was counting the days to the Season 3 premiere 🙂
Have no recollection of how I got from a (pausing-while-channel-flicking) to b (Holy-crap-this-is-ridiculously-good-please-sir-can-I-have-some-more)… Now that I stop and think about it that seems …what is the word I am looking for…unnatural? Unreal? Paranormal? …damn it its on the tip of my tongue…:-)
I second your comments about this site Sablegreen…’so shines a good deed in a naughty world’. And I love the community feeling that has developed – even though I am more an observer here it always feels welcoming 🙂
Thank you Alice for creating this watering hole for all of us Supernatural travellers and thank you Supernatural for this phenomenal, unbelievable, enthralling heartbreaking work of staggering genius! Here’s to the next 100 episodes 🙂
I’m with you all! I LOVE hearing how others fell for this show. It seems for most it was all or nothing, there just is no in-between.
Thanks Karen, elle, Randal, magichappening and Dany for commenting. I was hoping others would share their stories too.
Magichappening, so nice to hear your story. I can see why you would watch seasons 1 and 2 over and over. There were very special to me too. And yes, this is one wonderful site. I think that’s why only wonderful people gravitate here.
Thanks, Alice for all your hard work with this site, especially this week. What a great job you have done with the ‘Our Supernatural 100th Episode Celebration!!!’. Wonderful presentation and great articles.
Hopefully will see you all in episode 200!
Sablegreen, I second that. I’m also so happy to have found this show, and that I trusted my instincts. When the first episode aired I was simply curious because the trailer of it they had shown the week before was interesting, and I was hooked from there. I knew this was going to be a great show, and we’re still here.
Love the show. Love our discussions about it and the sometimes over-analyzing, the banter about it and the humour we take it on with. Although we love the show, we don’t take it too seriously which is a healthy thing.
This site has become a part of my life, and even though it has been so full already, now it’s even more colourful. I’m grateful for that and for your kindness.
Apart from that: You rock, Alice. But – you know that by now, don’t ya? 😉
Cheers, Jas
Just came across this site for the first time and love it. I do remember very well how I got to know of supernatural.
I am German and live in Germany. Have two sons whose dad is american and works for the army here in Germany. When my boys came back from visiting their dad during the summer in 2006 all they could talk about was a TV show dad had on DVD called supernatural. They told me that it is a great show. A horror show. And that in the first episode the mom burns on the ceiling. After the last remark i was like: No way I am going to watch a show were the first thing they do is burn mom. I felt for that woman.
But once the show came on on German TV my boys got me to sit down and watch it with them. And I am hooked ever since.
By the way my boys were 13 and 14 at the time.
I was introduced by a couple of friends to the show but was highly resistant to it due to chickenshitness when it comes to horror. And then I saw towel!Jared in Hell House. From then on it was history.
Never before have my life been so consumed by a television show that I start devouring fanfiction on a weekly basis. Five seasons on I am still doing it.
*grin*
I’ve shared my story before but I’ll put it in a thumbnail here again…’twas the writers’ strike that lead me to Supernatural, February of 2008 and channel hopping with nothing on cause the strike had pushed everything into repeats on top of repeats and that fateful Thursday night I found Mystery Spot. Had no idea of any of what it meant (especially the nuance, inside joke of Dean saying to Sam…”I’m not going to die, not today anyway.” — oooh, I get it NOW!) The episode ended and the preview for Jus In Bello aired and I thought hey, I’ll jot it down for next Thursday ’cause to buds, fighting the good fight, lots of action…I love buddy movies/shows…so I watched it the next week. I was hooked.
As for the fanbase, we’re crazy, sick [you know who you are], obsessed, dedicated and in love; and yep, I’m one of you [not the sick kind though, wincest [shudders]]
Anywho, I love coming here and reading and creating and I’ll have you all know…I’m writing articles right now to get ready for the upcoming dirth of new episodes and am so glad that all of us will be together to enjoy the summer hellatus [yes, it will be enjoyable especially with Randal and Sablegreen and Faeillie and … oh, shoot, everybody] and then bring on Season 6.
Hats off Supernatural and hats off fanbase!
Yirabah…welcome to the site. We have another member from Germany too, Jas. You and she should get in touch. She writes for this site too. Thanks for posting, and post often…we enjoy visitor’s comments! Makes is a lot of fun to write when we attract new people. Need I say…your sons have great taste, so apparently does their dad. Glad you took their advice! Thanks for sharing your story.
Uh…labseraph, I know the pic you mean. There is also a towel!Dean too. I found that quite by accident on the net one day. Don’t know what episodes it’s from though. Glad you also found this site. The more the merrier!
Jas and elle2… you guys are great. Elle2, I don’t remember reading your story before, so thanks for sharing again. I’m already working on articles too, and look forward to reading all of yours!
Sablegreen thanks for sharing your story about Supernatural. I wgmVcas interested from Episode 1 of the first season but lost track of it and came back during Season 3. I caught up with past episodes by renting the DVD’s. I like the fanbase as you do and I follow the series on this sight. Thanks for writing articles. I love to read them.
Sablegreen, great article—I love reading about how everyone got into the show too—thanks, all, for sharing! Magichappening: LOL. Please, sir, can I have some more? Hee. Totally. I love Oliver. Yirabah, welcome, this is an awesome site, I think I’m as addicted to TWFB as I am to the show.
I’ve shared my story before, mostly in bits and pieces. My consuming addiction to Supernatural is a direct result of my kid sister’s preadolescent crush on one Mr. Tom Welling. I blame him. My sis wanted me to watch Smallville with her on Thursday nights, so I did, mostly to humor her. It was the show that came on right after that really caught my interest: the first thing I saw was this dude crawling out of his grave! Clearly bad things had happened to him. S4 premiere, but I didn’t know it at the time. I was up to my eyeballs in work, though, and figured I didn’t have time for another TV show. I forced myself to turn it off.
This kept happening—week after week, the damn thing just kept getting more fascinating, it was harder and harder to turn off! But I was stubborn. I spent the entire fourth season fighting tooth and nail to NOT watch Supernatural, with varying degrees of success. Obviously, Supernatural won. By the time I saw the beginning of 4×21, I gave up, threw in the towel, raised my white flag. I had to know what the hell was going on in this show. I started catching up through illegal online streaming and DVDs from my local library. Rough going initially, it wasn’t love at first for me either (stuff like Wendigo and Hookman left me feeling a bit underwhelmed) but by the time I finished S1 and saw “In My Time of Dying†I realized the show had seriously got its claws in me and I’ve been hooked ever since.
I love hearing about how people came to the show and at what point. I started watching at the very beginning sometime in 2005 i stumbled in drunk late on a sunday night (11pm repeat and hey i was a student) turned on my tv and lo and behold the cute guy from dark angel so i watched (must have been dead in the water i think) myths, legends a classic car – of course i’ve never stopped watching.
Yeah the fans are awesome (even if some are batsh*t insane) and i’ve made some really good friends through the show and fandom. Also i love this site where we can come and indulge with like minded fans.
Thanks Alice and all the people here, love loving the show with you … here’s to SPN!
Jeannie, ElenaM, Bethany, thanks for sharing your stories. Jeanie, great that you came back to the show, and season 2 was fun to watch on DVD.
Elena, if I saw a show start with someone crawling out of a grave, there is NO WAY I would turn it off! It’s amazing you held out for almost all of season 4! Glad SPN won!
Bethany, you first watch SPN drunk! That’s funny. Now I can see drunk AFTER some of those episodes, but before them I’d never remember the show! 😀
Thanks all for sharing
Well, hey Sablegreen! First, let me say – great name! Green happens to be my favorite color. It appears I’m arriving quite late to the party! I do think I flitted by this site once or twice in the past few years, but I guess it never hit me what all you peeps were trying to accomplish here. We fans can be a mad lot, but you can certainly feel the love.
I worry though. You’ve obviously put a lot of time and effort into your offerings here. Well, many fans have. And I can see [i]you’re[/i] efforts are more widely known and appreciated than any fan might have the right to expect. Something tells me, that’s a give and take, BTW. But how can there possibly be enough hours in a day for everything else AND this? You do… like… sleep, right? There’s that little bit of Dean in me coming out. [i][Oh no – all the unintended enendres!][/i] Anyway, that would mean that hugs are strictly out of the questionb. 🙂
In my case, and I think you’ll like this, the place where I rented those first DVDs that hooked me? It’s called Family Video. Freaky SPN coincidences never cease, it seems.
I obviously have a lot of catching up to do. Now that I’m overwhelmed buy the scope and range here, and my initial buzz has worn off, I can follow the mantra that went with this year’s Halloween costume. Straight up – I put together something of a geisha outfit and I practiced a line to use on my friends. I’d add “at the rally point”, but you’d probably think I was making this up. My line was:
‘onolabo teecha say, it iseh bettah to speek wess… andh wisten moah.
Is that remotely readable? (LOL) Twain I ain’t. It translates to: Honorable teacher say, it is better to speak less… and listen more.
Probably time for me to listen to My Geisha advice.
Just – wow, y’all. So nice to… meet ya!
Ooops – Forgot to thank Alice! Thank-you so much for your obvious labor of love …m’lady.