Supernatural season 1

Supernatural Season 1
Season 1
A DVD box set with the foreground of the cover portraying two men, one holding a bladed weapon and the other with a shotgun, and the background portraying an automobile and stormy sky. DVD cover art
No. of episodes	22
Release
Original network	The WB
Original release	September 13, 2005 – May 4, 2006
Season chronology

Season one of Supernatural, an American television series created by Eric Kripke, premiered on September 13, 2005, and concluded on May 4, 2006 after 22 episodes. The season focuses on Sam and Dean Winchester trying to track down their father, John, who is on the trail of the demon who killed their mother and Sam's girlfriend. During their travels they use their father's journal to help them carry on the family business, saving people and hunting supernatural creatures. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles star as Sam and Dean, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan recurring as their father John and Nicki Aycox as the demonic Meg Masters. This is the only season to air on the WB television network, with all subsequent seasons airing on the CW television network, a joint venture of the WB and UPN.

The first sixteen episodes of the season aired on Tuesdays at 9:00 pm ET in the United States, after which the series was rescheduled to Thursdays. Overall, the season averaged about 3.81 American viewers. The season gained many award nominations, among them two Primetime Emmy Awards for work done on the pilot episode. While some critics did not like the mostly anthology-like format, others praised the show for the emotional moments and noted the brotherly chemistry between the lead actors.

The season was internationally syndicated, airing in the United Kingdom on ITV, in Canada on CITY-TV, and in Australia on Network Ten. The first season was released on DVD as a six-disc box set on September 5, 2006 by Warner Home Video in Region 1. Although the season was split into two separate releases in Region 2, the complete set was released on October 2, 2006. The episodes are also available through digital retailers such as Apple's iTunes Store, Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace, and Amazon.com's on-demand TV service.

Episodes

• "Ep. #" refers to the episode's number in the first season.
• "Legend(s)" refers to the supernatural or urban legend(s) addressed in the episode.
• "Viewers (mill)" refers to the number of Americans in millions who watched the episode live.

Ep.#	Title	Director	Writer(s)	Viewers (mill)	Airdate
1	"Pilot"	David Nutter	Eric Kripke	5.69	September 13, 2005
At a young age, Sam and Dean Winchester's mother died a violent and unexplainable death, which in turn led their father to teach them skills which could be of use in the search for whatever it was that took her life. Years later, while attending Stanford University, Sam finds himself brought back into the paranormal world by his older brother, who has come to tell him that their father has mysteriously disappeared. The two travel to Jericho, California, to find him, and are soon sidelined when they discover that a ghostly Woman in White has been taking male victims. They investigate, but Dean is soon arrested for impersonating a federal agent, and the Woman in White targets Sam.
2	"Wendigo"	David Nutter	Story: Ron Milbauer & Terri Hughes Burton Teleplay: Eric Kripke	5.01	September 20, 2005
After having no luck in the investigation of the death of Sam's girlfriend Jessica, the brothers follow instructions found in their father's journal and head to Blackwater Ridge, Lost Creek, Colorado. Posing as park rangers, they help a young woman and her younger brother search for their lost older brother, who disappeared while on a camping trip. Sam and Dean soon realize that he was taken by a wendigo that has been terrorizing the woods since 1936.
3	"Dead in the Water"	Kim Manners	Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker	5.01	September 27, 2005
Taking a break from the search for their father, Sam and Dean head to Lake Manitoc in Wisconsin for a possible case. Three drownings have occurred there within a year, the dead bodies then mysteriously disappearing in the lake. The brothers soon come to believe that the spirit of a young boy is haunting the lake, and learn that the local sheriff and the father of the latest victim accidentally caused his death when they were children. Wanting revenge, the spirit targets the sheriff's daughter and mute grandson.
4	"Phantom Traveler"	Robert Singer	Richard Hatem	5.40	October 4, 2005
The brothers are asked by a man whom Dean and his father had previously rescued to investigate the mysterious crash of a commercial airplane that left only seven survivors, with signs pointing to a demonically-possessed passenger causing the accident. Realizing that the demon is now eliminating the survivors one-by-one, Dean is forced to face his fear of flying by following its next target aboard an airliner, where he and Sam must find a way to exorcise the demon before it can crash the plane.
5	"Bloody Mary"	Peter Ellis	Story: Eric Kripke Teleplay: Ron Milbauer & Terri Hughes Burton	5.50	October 11, 2005
When a man is killed—his eyeballs having practically exploded—after his daughter chants "Bloody Mary" three times in front of a mirror, Sam and Dean head to Toledo, Ohio, to investigate. They learn that Bloody Mary is the ghost of a young woman who was murdered after having her eyes cut out, her spirit becoming trapped within the mirror that she died in front of. With the mirror now for sale in an antique store in the town, Bloody Mary has been targeting those nearby who feel guilt over another's death. The brothers must find a way to stop her after a young girl whose boyfriend committed suicide when she dumped him inadvertently becomes her next target. After tracking down the original mirror, the brothers smash it, but this only releases Bloody Mary.
6	"Skin"	Robert Duncan McNeill	John Shiban	5.00	October 18, 2005
After Zach, a college friend of Sam's, is arrested for murdering his girlfriend, the brothers head to St. Louis, Missouri, to investigate. Zach's sister Becky claims that he was with her at the time of the murder, although security footage places him at the scene of the crime. After a similar murder occurs, they realize that the real culprit is a being with shapeshifting abilities. However, the shapeshifter then captures the two, and plans to use Dean's form to kill Becky.
7	"Hook Man"	David Jackson	John Shiban	5.08	October 25, 2005
Sam and investigate the brutal death of a student at a college, with the victim's girlfriend saying that the attacker was invisible. More attacks occur, with the victims all seemingly connected to the girl. The brothers believe that the killer is the Hook Man, with research finding that it is the vengeful spirit of Jacob Karns, a preacher put to death for the murder of 13 prostitutes in 1862 with the hook that replaced his lost hand. To stop the spirit, they must destroy the hook, which unfortunately was reforged into an unknown object after Karns' death.
8	"Bugs"	Kim Manners	Rachel Nave & Bill Coakley	4.47	November 8, 2005
After a construction worker for a new housing development dies in a sinkhole, his brain dissolving within minutes, the brothers head to Oasis Plains, Oklahoma, to investigate. There they learn of mysterious, bug-related deaths in the town. After doing research, they discover that a Native American tribe used to live in the area, but its members were murdered by cavalrymen, with the tribe's chief placing a curse on the land as he died. Sam and Dean determine that the curse will reach its climax that night, and race to warn the family living there as swarms of insects attack.
9	"Home"	Ken Girotti	Eric Kripke	4.21	November 15, 2005
Sam has nightmares of a family being attacked by a supernatural being in his and Dean's childhood home, prompting the brothers to return to Lawrence, Kansas, to investigate. They enlist the help of their father's psychic friend, Missouri Mosley, to rid the house of a poltergeist. Though Missouri claims to purify the house, Sam does not believe it was successful, so the brothers later watch over the house. When the poltergeist returns, Sam's premonition starts becoming true. The brothers rush in to rescue the family, though it is the spirit of their mother that ends up saving them.
10	"Asylum"	Guy Bee	Richard Hatem	5.38	November 22, 2005
After receiving a tip from their father, Sam and Dean travel to Rockford, Illinois, to investigate the haunted Roosevelt Asylum, where criminally insane patients rioted in 1964, one of the victims being the chief psychiatrist. However, the spirits there try to communicate rather than attack, leading the brothers to discover that the psychiatrist had been conducting cruel experiments on his patients in order to test his theory that provoking extreme anger in his patients would be therapeutic for them. The ghost of the doctor then confronts Sam, causing him to lose his sanity and try to kill his brother.
11	"Scarecrow"	Kim Manners	Story: Patrick Sean Smith Teleplay: John Shiban	4.23	January 10, 2006
After their father sends a message telling them to investigate the disappearances of young couples in a rural Indiana town, Sam reveals to Dean that he would rather track down their father, prompting the two to angrily separate. As Sam meets a fellow hitchhiker named Meg Masters, Dean starts the investigation and ends up saving a traveling couple from a living scarecrow. Dean calls Sam about the creature, and discovers that a Vanir is being summoned in the form of a scarecrow to protect the town in exchange for annual sacrifices. Because the couple intended for the ritual were able to escape, Dean is chosen by the townspeople to be one of the new sacrifices.
12	"Faith"	Allan Kroeker	Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker	3.86	January 17, 2006
While battling a Rawhead, Dean gets electrocuted and his heart is damaged, doctors giving him only a few weeks to live. Sam searches for a way to save him and believes he may have found an answer in a preacher who claims to heal the incurable. At the congregation, Dean is chosen, and is cured of his condition. However, he and Sam soon learn that an openly gay teacher died of a heart attack at the same moment that Dean was healed. Further research reveals that deaths occurred in unison with other healings, prompting the brothers to believe that the preacher is using black magic to control a Reaper, healing people in exchange for the lives of those he deems immoral.
13	"Route 666"	Paul Shapiro	Eugenie Ross-Leming & Brad Buckner	5.82	January 31, 2006
Dean is contacted by his first love, Cassie, who asks him to come to Cape Girardeau in Missouri to investigate a string of racially motivated murders, one of which was her father. Each murder is linked to a mysterious truck that seems to have no driver and leave no tracks. The brothers eventually discover that Cassie's mother, a white woman, left her boyfriend Cyrus for Cassie's African-American father. Cyrus tried to kill him out of anger, but he gained the upper hand with the help of his friends and ended up beating Cyrus to death, dumping Cyrus' body and truck in a nearby swamp. Now Cyrus' spirit is out for revenge against everyone connected to his death.
14	"Nightmare"	Phil Sgriccia	Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker	4.27	February 7, 2006
Sam has a premonition of a man being killed in Saginaw, Michigan, but the murder is made to look like a suicide. They talk to the victim's son Max and fail to find anything supernatural, but warn Max's uncle to be careful. When he, too, then dies a mysterious death, Sam and Dean believe the family to be cursed. However, while investigating they learn that Max was regularly beaten by his father and uncle as a child. Sam then has another vision of Max using telekinetic abilities to kill his stepmother, angry at her for not stopping the abuse. The brothers manage to stop Max, with Sam learning from him that, when he was a baby, his mother also died in the same manner as theirs did. Max's anger then resurfaces, and he locks Sam in the closet, triggering for Sam a premonition of Max murdering Dean.
15	"The Benders"	Peter Ellis	John Shiban	3.96	February 14, 2006
Sam and Dean head to Hibbing, Minnesota, where a young boy witnesses a man vanish into thin air. While investigating, Sam is also ends up being abducted. Dean pretends to be a police officer searching for his cousin, and teams up with a female cop. Although she soon learns Dean's true identity, she allows him to continue in the investigation, as her own brother went missing in the same manner three years before. They are stunned when the kidnappers turn out to be a family of humans who have been hunting and killing people for sport.
16	"Shadow"	Kim Manners	Eric Kripke	4.22	February 28, 2006
While investigating an animalistic death in Chicago, the brothers find a symbol of blood, which Dean later learns is connected to a Zoroastrian creature known as a daeva. They later run into Meg Masters, with Sam's suspicions of her leading him to discover that she was behind the murder. They confront her, but she reveals that it is all part of a trap set to capture their father. Sam and Dean manage to turn the daevas against her, and she is thrown out of a window several stories to the ground below. When they return to their motel room, they find their father waiting for them, but Meg returns and once again sends the daevas after them.
17	"Hell House"	Chris Long	Trey Callaway	3.76	March 30, 2006
As a prank, teens spread the word that a local house is haunted by the ghost of Mordechai Murdoch, a man who reportedly killed his six daughters during the 1930s, and it ends up being listed on the urban legend website Hell Hound's Lair. However, when it soon appears that the house actually is haunted, the brothers head to Richardson, Texas, to investigate, and run into paranormal investigators Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spengler, owners of the website. Although research into the legend shows no evidence, the brothers encounter the spirit, but it has variations to Mordechai's origins. When Sam and Dean realize that the legend on Hell Hound's Lair has also changed, they theorize that the spirit is actually a Tulpa brought on by a Tibetan spirit sigil painted by the teens as a joke, with the beliefs of the website's visitors causing the story to become reality.
18	"Something Wicked"	Whitney Ransick	Daniel Knauf	3.67	April 6, 2006
On a tip from their father, Sam and Dean head to Fitchburg, Wisconsin, to investigate a small town where children are falling into comas. After investigating, they discover that the creature responsible is a vampiric witch known as a shtriga, which is stealing life force from the kids. Dean reveals to Sam that their father had previously attempted to kill the creature when they were young, and that Dean's recklessness almost cost Sam his life and allowed the shtriga to escape.
19	"Provenance"	Phil Sgriccia	David Ehrman	3.62	April 13, 2006
After a young couple is found brutally murdered within a locked house, the brothers investigate, and learn from their father's journal that similar deaths have occurred in the area over the past few decades. With all of the couple's belongings being taken to an auction house, they check to see if a spirit may have attached itself to something. After looking through the provenances of the items, Dean discovers that a painted portrait from 1910 of Isaiah Merchant’s family—Merchant having later killed his family and then himself—belonged to all of the other murder victims. Realizing that the painting is haunted, the brothers burn it, but it later repairs itself, so they track down Merchant's body and burn it. However, when they then return to destroy the painting again, an unexpected figure emerges from it.
20	"Dead Man's Blood"	Tony Wharmby	Cathryn Humphris & John Shiban	3.99	April 20, 2006
When an old vampire hunter is targeted by a group of vampires, he tries to attack them with an old Colt gun, but is murdered before he can fire a shot. When Dean recognizes the name in the newspaper, he and Sam head to Boulder, Colorado, and discover a letter addressed to their father, who suddenly returns. The letter reveals to him that the gun is mystical and capable of killing anything. Realizing that they can use it to finally kill Azazel, the demon responsible for their mother's death, the Winchesters hatch a plan to steal it back from the vampires.
21	"Salvation"	Robert Singer	Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker	3.26	April 27, 2006
As Meg starts targeting the Winchesters' friends in order to force them to hand over the Colt, John reveals to his sons the research on Azazel that he has accumulated over the years. With signs pointing to Salvation, Iowa, as the location of the demon's next target, the trio heads there to investigate. After Sam has a premonition, he is able to identify the target. However, before they can strategize, Meg calls and threatens to kill more of their friends unless they hand over the gun. John concedes to her demand, but tries to deliver a fake one, leaving the boys to rescue the family and hopefully kill Azazel.
22	"Devil's Trap"	Kim Manners	Eric Kripke	3.99	May 4, 2006
After learning that their father has been captured, the brothers go to family friend and fellow hunter Bobby Singer for help. However, Meg tracks them down and attacks, but she is caught underneath a mystical symbol known as a "devil's trap", which renders her immobilized and powerless. The hunters exorcise the demon from her, but the host's previously sustained injuries are fatal. Before the real Meg dies, she offers a clue to John's whereabouts. Sam and Dean head to Jefferson City, Missouri, and manage to rescue their father. However, on the way to the hospital, the three are crashed into by a demonically-possessed truck driver.

Production

Writing

The first ten episodes being all self-enclosed, with individual stories being completed in each episode and contributing little to the overall storyline, the eleventh episode "Scarecrow" started the series mythology by introducing the demon Meg Masters, which Manners felt was "desperately needed". Though they were uncertain at exactly what direction to take the character, Meg was intended to be an antagonist for the Winchesters throughout her story arc. The other big addition to the mythology was the Colt, a mystical gun capable of killing anything. Connected to the last three scripts of the season, the concept of the gun came as a relief to the writers of "Salvation", as they needed both a way to fight Meg and a reason for her to go after the Winchesters' friends. With the series meant to be a "modern American Western", Tucker felt that the Colt "just seems so appropriate for the show" due to its "old west kind of feel". Overall, Kripke summed up the first season's mythology as merely "find Dad", which he found as "simple", "emotional", and "clean". However, he found the self-enclosed episodes as "hit and miss".

"You can't just hold up a cross and expect a vampire to cower away—that's not real. Everything that people know classically about vampires is wrong, so that just gave us an opportunity to plant our own flag and create our own creature."

— Kripke on Supernatural's divergence from classical folklore.

Although the weekly adversaries for the Winchesters are often based on urban legends, the writers usually put their own spin on the stories to fit in with the episodes. For the pilot episode, Kripke wanted to use the well-known urban legend of the vanishing hitchhiker, but combined it with the Mexican legend of La Llorona to give the spirit her motivation and more characterization. To address a potential plot hole in "Bloody Mary", the writers created a backstory for the villain, having her target specific people to explain why she does not kill everyone who summons her. With there being many variations of the original Hook Man legend, the writers took elements from three or four of them for the episode. Although the Hook Man in the urban legend is a murderer who has recently escaped from a mental institution, the writers instead made the villain of "Hook Man" be a ghost of a hook-handed killer, and also added in aspects of a poltergeist by having him attached to the conflicting emotions of one of the female characters. When the writers decided to have an episode based on the many urban legends of a scarecrow coming to life and killing people, they did not want to feel repetitive by having another ghost as the antagonist, so they borrowed from the Vanir of Norse mythology for "Scarecrow". For the episode "Faith", Reapers were not in the original script, but were later added to both give an opportunity for scary sequences and to give an origin to the faith healer's ability. Although the concept of Reapers started off as being hooded and carrying a sickle like in folklore, the writers found it to be too cheesy, eventually settling on the appearance of "the most shriveled old man you could ever imagine". When it came time to choose which version of folklore to base vampires off of, Kripke and Shiban chose to have them be connected to the original legends rather than modern interpretations. It was decided to not have them be scared of sunlight or crucifixes, and stories of some vampires secretly living among humans prompted the inclusion of retractable fangs, which were based on shark teeth in rows. Kripke also added his own element in, having the blood of a dead man weakening vampires when injected into them.

Other aspects grew out of basic concepts or ideas. For the episode "Skin", which involved a shapeshifting villain, writer Shiban felt that the creature had to change into one of the lead characters. The character chosen was Dean, and the writers decided not to try to find a way to clear his name of attempted murder at the end of the episode. Though they at first feared that having one of the main characters be a wanted man would later ruin the show, the writers eventually felt it was "a great layer to add to the characters", opening up new potential storylines and characters. Dean's reputation is addressed again in "The Benders", and catches up to him in the second and third seasons. Another element that would influence future episodes came about in "Hook Man" when writers Milbauer and Burton realized that shotguns shoot salt, a weakness for spirits. Kripke felt that to be the "perfect combination of occult element", as it brought to together a "folkloric repellent of evil" with the "blue-collar aspect of shotguns". The episode "Ayslum" later established iron as another weapon against ghosts. "Faith", which features a faith healer who heals good people of their illnesses at the cost of the lives of others, was meant to make people question whether or not it was the wrong thing to do, and the terminally ill character Layla was used to exemplify this. Kripke felt, "She's really a great girl and she deserves to live, and some stranger you don't even know will die... and maybe that worth it." Although the villain of the episode "Hell House" has supernatural origins, the basis of the story came from a situation writer Trey Callaway had as a child, he and his friends having created a fake murder scene in an abandoned barn and then claimed to their friends that killings occurred there. They believed the story, and would often go there to scare each other, with one girl running away and breaking her leg after believing that she saw an attacking ghost. Kripke found it rather easy to write the season finale "Devil's Trap", as he knew beforehand that the key elements of the episode would be the exorcism of the demon possessing Meg, the death of the real Meg, and the apparent rescue of John Winchester. Kripke felt that the revelation of John being possessed by Azazel had to be, as it completed the two main storylines of the season—finding their father and tracking down the demon—at the same time, but had them find the characters in the same body.

"When you think about it, so many monsters are akin to natural phenomena—it's about survival and existence... but it's not as diabolical and twisted as a human being can get."

— Shiban on the human villains of "The Benders".

Sometimes elements of the episodes originate from something the writers want to convey or include. When writing "The Benders", Shiban chose to have the villains of the episode be human in order to surprise the audience, as viewers would expect something supernatural to be involved. It also allowed him to have the Winchesters face something they had never encountered before. For "Nightmare", Tucker tried to write the character Max as sympathetic, and thus had difficulties in deciding how to end the episode. However, the writers eventually decided to have him kill himself, as he would continue harming others if he were allowed to live. Starting off on the series, Kripke did not want to feature vampires due to their affiliation to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as he wanted Supernatural to have its own identity. However, as time went on, he became more comfortable with it, and they were included in "Dead Man's Blood". The episode was originally intended to be a self-enclosed episode, but became connected to the series mythology when Kripke included the introduction of the Colt. The writers had always wanted to have a story about the brothers reencountering a creature from a childhood hunt, and were able to add this element as a subplot to the episode "Something Wicked". When Gamble and Tucker wanted to do an episode that featured friends of the Winchesters that had been mentioned in previous episodes, they decided to have Meg hunt them down, as the they felt that having the characters die would be the only way for Kripke to allow their inclusion. However, the writers had trouble coming up with something for the Winchesters to be doing during this, so it was decided to have two separate stories occurring in the episode, with the brothers trying to protect another family from Azazel. Tucker felt that this opened "all this emotional stuff with the guys", as well as "brought back all the themes of the show and tied the season up into a nice big bow".

Influences by popular culture

While many episodes were inspired by supernatural and urban legends, some aspects were influenced by popular culture. The inspiration for the wendigo's appearance in "Wendigo" came from the creature featured in the music video for the Aphex Twin song "Come to Daddy", though human features were added to the design due the wendigo's human origins, with the show giving the creature the ability to mimic human voices to create a "creepy effect". However, Kripke was not pleased with the final appearance of the wendigo, deeming him as "Gollum's tall, gangly cousin". Because of this, the creature is not seen throughout most of the episode. For shapeshifting scenes in the episode "Skin", Kripke chose to base the transformation on that of An American Werewolf in London, using prosthetics and makeup rather than using computer-generated imagery. The titular villain in "Bloody Mary" was influenced by Samara of The Ring. However, with her grisly appearance and the use of speed ramping to create a time-manipulation effect, Kripke felt that she ended up looking too similar to the character, though visual effects supervisor Ivan Hayden believes it was more of an homage.

Filming

Though the pilot was filmed in Los Angeles, principal filming takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia. Thus, on-location filming usually takes place in the area. "Dead in the Water" was filmed at Buntzen Lake, and Riverview Hospital functioned as an asylum in "Asylum". In "The Benders", filming took place in a Western town previously built for another television show, with the warehouse loft set in "Shadow" being previously used for the series Tru Calling. As well, the auction house in "Provenance" was in actuality a two-story furniture store, and part of the filming for the episode "Wendigo" took place in a mine in Britannia Beach. However, there are some standing sets, such as the motel room frequented by the Winchesters. In order to disguise the fact that it is used over and over again, the motel room in each episode usually has a different theme, with different colors, bedspreads, and curtains being used, the motel set of the episode "Provenance" being disco-themed. As well, the fight scene between the Winchesters and Azazel in the season finale "Devil's Trap" was filmed in a forest-enclosed cabin built on a sound stage. The crash scene at the end of the episode was filmed on an old airport space with flat roads.

Music

The mostly synthesized orchestral score of the season was composed by Christopher Lennertz and Jay Gruska. They try to base the music on the visuals of the episode, with about a third of each episode's score being newly written for the supernatural legend. For example, off-angle shots in "Dead in the Water" are accompanied by repetitive and discordant notes. As well, spoken words such as "water" and "die" are followed by a lower pitch, as Lennertz felt it created a "gurgly" water sound. For "Bloody Mary", Lennertz made the music for scenes hinting at the presence of the titular villain very simple, with single-string lines weaving in and out. Likewise, in "Hook Man", "big, big music" was played during chase scenes involving the villain. However, the music would go silent when the Hook Man would disappear, followed by the screeching sound of his hook scraping along the wall as he reemerges, with music then resuming. The episode "Home" featured an electric cello and woodwinds that were used to create a big emotional tone, with Lennertz feeling that the final cue "became a very cinematic musical moment". In order to fit in with the episode's ambience in "Asylum", Gruska made the music very subtle, Lennertz feeling that it was "creepy-crawly" like "a snake sneaking along the ground". To match up with the theme of traveling evangelists in "Faith", Lennertz used a small seventy-six-key piano that was damaged and slightly out of tune. Small items such as coins and paperclips were attached to the keys in order to create a rattling noise, making the piano seem "old and crappy". Lennertz then played "bluesy gospel music" during the sermon scenes involving the Reapers. Because he felt that there was also a "snake-oil salesman vibe" to the episode, he also included an Armenian duduk due to its association with snake charming. Due to the humor used in the episode "Hell House", the score had a much lighter tone, which Lennertz described as a "plucky sound". For example, music for the scenes involving the "professional" ghost hunters used percussion instruments to slightly mimic the Mission: Impossible theme. For the episode "Provenance", which featured a possible love interest for Sam, traditional woodwinds were used for emotion and romance.

"When it's with the boys, we're melodic. But when it's scary, we're full-on Elliot Goldenthal! It's that the mentality let's [us] really beat people up a little bit and really make it scary. It gives you a yin-yang kind of thing."

— Lennertz on the contrasting music of the series.

However, recurring characters often have certain musical themes attached to them. For the pilot episode, Lennertz used a piano solo with discordant notes and reverberations to create a "really nasty" sounding echo effect for the scenes involving Mary and Jess' deaths at the hands of the demon Azazel. Lennertz was able to return to this in "Nightmare", including it when Sam realizes the connection he shares with the demon and Max. The episode "Dead in the Water" was the first to use what Kripke feels is the "Winchester emotion", which involves sorrowful and reverberating piano notes on top of strings. It is used when the brothers make connections with other characters. As well, there are variants of a guitar line that are used as the "humorous brothers' theme" in many episodes, including "The Pilot" and "Hell House", when the brothers are having fun. With Gruska writing Meg Master's theme for "Scarecrow", Lennertz reused the music in "Shadow" but "took the scary up a notch" in order to imply to the viewers that she is both "more important and more devilish" than the other creatures in the episode. For the penultimate episode "Salvation", Lennertz brought in musical elements used throughout the season.

In addition to the score, the series makes use of rock songs, with most being selected from Kripke's private collection. Among the many bands featured in the first season are AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lynrd Skynyrd, and Bad Company. Rock songs are also usually featured in "The Road So Far" montages at the beginning of select episodes that recap previous events. This was first done with the episode "Salvation", in which the entire season was recapped to Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son", with the subsequent episode—the season finale—using Triumph's "Fight the Good Fight".

Effects

While it was intended for the vengeful spirit's attack to be done with special effects in "Dead in the Water", CGI was found to be more practical.

In order to depict various supernatural aspects, the series makes use of visual, special, and make-up effects, as well as stuntwork. While companies were contracted for production of the pilot episode, subsequent episodes being filmed in Vancouver required a new crew to be hired that worked exclusively for the show. The company Entity FX did the visual effects for the pilot episode, with Ivan Hayden taking over as visual effects supervisor for the rest of the season. The crew was required to design all of the external airplane shots in "Phantom Traveler" from scratch using CGI. As well, they created a time-manipulation effect for the titular villain in "Bloody Mary" by altering the capture frame rate of the camera. Randy Shymkiw acted as special effects supervisor, and the department found the episode "Asylum" to be quite a challenge, as one scene has the vengeful spirit collapse into dust. They made casts of the character's torso and hands, and had to find the perfect mixture in order to have the casts remain solid but disintegrate when needed.

The visual and special effects departments often overlap, such as in Mary Winchester's death scene in the pilot episode. Because the character is pinned to the ceiling and burned to death, actress Samantha Smith was required to lie down on a floor with two propane pipes spouting fire approximately five feet away from her on either side. For the actual burning of the character, a fake body was ignited on a fake ceiling. When the burning of the titular creature in the episode "Wendigo" was not sufficient using special effects, a wire-frame mannequin wrapped in steel wool was then burned, with the scene being composited into the original footage to draw out the wendigo's death. To make it appear that the Hook Man is invisible as he scrapes his hook along the wall in one of the scenes in "Hook Man", a wire was placed inside plaster walls and then pulled out, the wire later being removed in post-production. In the episode "Bugs", the cast had to be sealed in a small area with hundreds of bees, and were stung despite wearing special costumes with cuffs sewn into their sleeves and pants. However, the bees did not show up well on camera, so most of them that appear in the final version were added with CGI.

The series also features much stuntwork. Lou Bollo took over as stunt coordinator after "The Pilot", and big scenes often involve the actors, though stunt doubles are used for certain moments. For the final lake scene in "Dead in the Water" in which Dean must save a boy after he is pulled underwater by a vengeful spirit, actor Jensen Ackles had to hold onto the young actor as they were pulled down ten feet into the water by divers. The actor portraying the vengeful spirit had to wear a wetsuit under his costume due to the long amount of time he was required to spend in the lake. Ackles and Jared Padalecki performed most of the fight scene featured in "Skin", and only took four hours to learn the fight choreography. However, stunt doubles were brought in for the scenes in which they are thrown into bookshelves and through a coffee table. For the episode "Shadow", rather than filming at the exterior location for the scene of Meg Masters being thrown out of a window to the street below, it was decided to not depict the impact, instead having the Winchesters look down at her body after the landing. Thus, filming of it was allowed to take place in the studio using a body double.

Some scenes make use of all three departments. For scenes involving the floating, fiery spirit of Mary Winchester in "Home", a small and slim stuntman wearing a fire suit was lit on fire and raised into the air on wires. For the spirit's transition into Mary's normal form, Smith stood in front of a black background with wind blowing onto her, and the two scenes were later combined in post-production. Many aspects went into filming the crash scene in the season finale "Devil's Trap". For the interior scenes used in the first moments of the Impala being hit, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was required to sit in the car, which was in front of a blue screen. A sheet of Lexan was placed very close to the passenger-side window for protection, and the window was then shattered. At the same time, cannons beneath the frame blew out pieces of rubber glass to give the appearance that the window exploded onto him. For scenes of the actual crash, the car and truck were cabled together by a winch, and thus were both moving towards one another. What was intended was for a cannon to then launch the Impala into the air at the collision point, with the car then barrel rolling as the truck drives away. However, the car ended up getting stuck in the truck's bumper, causing the cannon to fail and the truck to go out of control. Luckily the truck began to jackknife, and the stuntman driving it saved it from flipping. The mistake ended up being beneficial for the scene, as Kripke and director Manners found it to look "pretty real".

Reception

After the first four episodes of Supernatural aired in 2005, the WB decided to pick up the series for a full season of 22 episodes. During those first episodes, the series was ranked third in males aged 18–34 and 12-34. It also posted an increase of 73% in males aged 18–49 from the year before, although it only gained 4% in total viewers, and retained 91% of viewers from its lead-in, Gilmore Girls. Supernatural's first season averaged about 3.81 American viewers. According to Special Forces Soldier Master Sergeant Kevin Wise at a 2007 Supernatural convention, the DVDs most requested by armed forces personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan were the first two seasons of the series.

The first season of the series received mixed reviews from critics. Tanner Stransky of Entertainment Weekly gave the first season a B, saying the show "comes off as weekly installments of a horror movie series", but that "Adding to the show's cred are the '67 Chevy Impala the boys rumble around in and their kick-ass soundtrack". Tom Gliatto of People Weekly ranked the show at number five on his list of the Best TV Shows of 2005. Peter Schorn of IGN gave the season a score of 7/10. While he found the self-enclosed episodes to be "passably entertaining", he enjoyed the story arcs introduced later in the season. Schorn also deemed the "stormy relationship between Sam and his father" to be "compelling", and noted that the lead stars have "good chemistry together". Rick Porter of Zap2it felt that while the season had its "share of emotional moments", it also "[scared] the pants off" of viewers "surprisingly well". He also believed that it did a good job at balancing mythology episodes with self-enclosed ones, comparing it to the early seasons of The X-Files. However, Eric Neigher of Slant Magazine highly criticized the self-enclosed episodes for being "almost totally linear, without any B- or C-stories", and felt that the episodes were mainly "watered-down rehashes of classic weird fiction or popular urban legends".

Work on the pilot episode garnered two Primetime Emmy Awards nominations in 2006, composer Christopher Lennertz being nominated in the category of "Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (Dramatic Underscore)" and the sound editors receiving a nomination for "Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series". The pilot episode also brought in a nomination for a Golden Reel Award in the category of "Best Sound Editing in Television: Short Form – Sound Effects and Foley", with work on the episode "Salvation" gaining the same nomination in 2007. Additionally, the season was nominated for a Saturn Award in the category of "Best Network Television Series". For the Teen Choice Awards, the series was nominated for "TV - Choice Breakout Show" and Jensen Ackles for "TV - Choice Breakout Star".

DVD release

The first season of Supernatural was released as a six-disc Region 1 DVD box set on September 5, 2006, three weeks before the premiere of the second season. The cover art incorporated a stylised shot of the Winchester brothers in front of their car. Including all 22 episodes of the first season, the set also featured DVD extras such as episode commentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers, featurettes, and a DVD-ROM sneak-peek at the second season. The season was ranked #14 in DVD sales for its week of release, and slipped to #28 the following week, with cumulative sales during those two weeks coming to 150,376 sets for $5,264,942. The set was later packaged with the first season of Smallville as a "Season One Starter Pack", which was released on September 18, 2007. For Region 2, the season was split into two parts, being released on May 22, 2006, and August 21, 2006; the complete set was released on October 2, 2006.

References

General

Knight, Nicholas (2007). Supernatural: The Official Companion Season 1. Titan Books. ISBN 1845765354.

Specific

External links

• Official website
• Supernatural season 1 at IMDb