Supernatural wraps up its impressive 15-season run this year, and it's paved the way for an entire generation of television shows. The show challenged what networks deemed audience-friendly content, and with more than 300 episodes under its belt, Supernatural opened the door for new genres of television shows to flourish.
The show chronicles the adventures of Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles), who hunt all things that go bump in the night. The boys carry on their family business by traveling the country and taking down everything from shapeshifters, to tricksters, to vampires. Sam and Dean also make friends along the way and juggle family drama of their own while hunting monsters.
Supernatural has ended up becoming one of the longest-running shows of its kind to date. A record-breaking show like this has left a ripple effect across television as a whole. The show has helped to bring certain genres and styles that were previously considered too niche to the forefront of television, like horror and fantasy. The way Sam and Dean have been portrayed also challenged how masculinity could be shown on the small screen.
The show started on the simple premise of bringing horror to the small screen. As Supernatural creator Eric Kripke shared with Entertainment Weekly, horror movies The Grudge and The Ring were hits at the box office at the time he was pitching Supernatural, so he decided to bring that experience to television. Horror is often a television genre that goes overlooked, not drawing in the same numbers other genres do. Kripke's pitch was accepted on his second try, and with it, Supernatural's brand of commercial-friendly horror was born.
Supernatural managed to strike a balance that feels reminiscent of B-horror, with plenty of low-level scares that do not exclude those turned off by true horror. Supernatural might not be completely family-friendly, but the show ended up being a good beginner's course in the horror genre.
The monsters that Sam and Dean hunted were the perfect way to bring that diluted horror to television. Demons, werewolves and vampires are common subjects of horror movies and common targets for the Winchesters. This brand of light horror gave way to shows like Teen Wolf and The Vampire Diaries. Teen-focused dramas with small scares have become a fixture on networks like The CW, which has been Supernatural's home for the last 15 years.
Supernatural also made its mark in horror television by adding its own twist to the genre — fantasy. The show sees a character travel to Oz with Dorothy herself, the boys get trapped within the world of various TV shows, and they wield a variety of magical weapons. Needless to say, Supernatural is not afraid to get weird.
That combination of horror and fantasy has worked out in its favor. With Supernatural's 15-season run, the show will go down as the 12th longest scripted U.S. primetime television series. Every other show that has cracked the top 15 belong to more common genres, with Supernatural being the only horror-fantasy show to make it so high on that list.
Its success gave other show permission to follow in its footsteps. Fantasy can be found everywhere on television nowadays. The SYFY network show The Magicians built a world the solely revolved around fantasy. Based on a series of books of the same name, its characters are drawn into a literary world previously thought to be fictional. Storylines along the same vein happen in Supernatural constantly.
Some beings that Sam and Dean come in contact with are more common in fantasy and mythology than horror as well, particularly religious figures. One of Supernatural's most iconic villains is Lucifer himself. This portrayal surely gave way to the Netflix show all about Satan, Lucifer.
Genres aside, Supernatural does something else few other shows do; it makes fun of itself. When he wrote his second draft of the pitch, it was important to Kripke that the show be injected with some humor. That humor allowed Supernatural to dip its toe more into B-horror and lean into the campiness that comes with that.
After years of this blend of humor and horror, the show found a way to make fun of itself. On more than one occasion, Supernatural went meta. A storyline was introduced when the boys' lives were subjects of fictional YA novels written by God himself, and a trickster even managed to transport them to a world where they were the stars of a show called Supernatural. Netflix's short-lived sci-fi show The OA ended on the exact same note, with its protagonists being transported into a dimension where their lives are the focus of a television show.
Supernatural's genre-bending style has influenced a host of television shows, but there are plenty of lessons left that current television shows could stand to follow. While the show has poked fun at this in its meta moments, it's rare to see two male leads so in touch with their emotions. Sam and Dean are the epitome of masculine, but the Winchesters, namely Sam, aren't afraid to say how they feel. It's not uncommon to see the brothers cry and express appreciation toward each other and their friends.
Ultimately, Supernatural proves there's taste for shows that are a little weird and out of the ordinary. The show challenged what was deemed watchable and acceptable by audiences. Kripke said that the swings his show would take would either be a home run or get them cancelled. His risks worked, and shows with weirder subject matter now dominate networks and streaming platforms. Supernatural paved the way for all those shows, and its legacy will be felt for years to come.
Starring Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, and Alexander Calvert, the final seven episodes of Supernatural will return on Oct. 8 on The CW.