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Primetime Show Reviews

"Supernatural" Review by Suzanne 9/14/05

This is a really exciting, spooky, creepy show, in all the right ways.  It reminds me a bit of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "Angel" but it's much more of a horror show.  It doesn't have a lot of gore, though, like today's horror movies. It's much more subtle and frightening than that.

Two brothers lose their mother when she is killed by some sort of supernatural spirit in their home.  We see her killed in the past, and then the show fast-forwards to present-day when the younger brother, Sam, has just graduated from college, planning to go to law school.  His older brother, Dean, shows up, and we learn that their father has become a sort of Ghost Buster in order to hunt for their mother's killer.  He has trained his sons to be the same way. Instead of bring a normal family, they live to hunt ghosts over everything else.  The younger son has gone to college and escaped that life, but the older brother is still doing the ghost-hunting with his father.  The father has gone missing, so the older brother shows up at the college to get his younger brother to help him find their ghost-busting dad.  The younger brother is reluctant to go and leave behind his pretty girlfriend and his bright future, but he goes anyway, figuring he'll be back in time for his law school interview on Monday.

The two brothers find the ghost that their father was hunting, a woman who hitchhikes along an old stretch of California highway, luring men to their deaths.  They end up getting rid of the ghost, but their father has moved on.  We also find out that the father has learned to skirt the law and use phony names and illegal credits to fund his ghost-chasing, and he's taught his sons the same tricks.  The older brother gets arrested at one point but gets away.

After they get the ghost and Sam goes back to college, he finds that his girlfriend is being killed the same way as his mother (both get sucked up to the ceiling, dripping blood, and then are engulfed by flames, and the houses are quickly consumed by flames as well).  Dean rescues Sam.

The plot moves along very quickly, with no dull moments.  The characters are interesting and well-written.  The parts with ghosts are very scary, as I said earlier.  It's interesting that in the first episode, we have so much conflict set up for the rest of the series.  The brothers love their father and miss their mother, but they also resent the sort of life they were forced to lead (especially Sam).  Now Sam is going to be feeling vengeful, just like his father, over losing his girlfriend.  Like Buffy or Angel, they wish they could lead normal lives, but they have to fight evil instead and save the world from the vengeful spirits and other nasty creatures.  They also have to find their dad, who seems to be moving one step ahead of them.  Both brothers are well-trained in fighting, so there is a lot of great action.  They are also both very handsome, so expect some romance as well.

Jensen Ackles (Dean) has a lot of charisma and is very popular, so it's about time he starred in his own show.  He has come a long way since his days on "Days of Our Lives".  He has always had charisma, but he also learned to act since then.  WB audiences will remember him from "Dawson's Creek" and "Smallville".  He was also a recurring character on "Dark Angel".  Dean has a real attitude on the show, so his character is fun to watch.  Jared Padalecki (Sam) is best known for another WB show, "Gilmore Girls", but he has been in a few movies as well.  Both boys are gorgeous.  There should be enough action for most male viewers and enough hunkage for most female viewers.  For anyone else, it's just a plain great action/adventure/horror show.

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