It’s Natural; Supernatural, In Fact
I’ll be honest; I, like I suspect many of you, have never seen this show before. So when I fired up the first disc to start watching, I was happy to see a very brief, but informative collage of scenes from the previous two seasons. That, combined with what I’ve read online and what I’ve seen in season three, has given me a fairly complete picture of what’s going on in the show up to the point of season four, which airs on CW Thursday nights.
For those of you unfamiliar with the series, let me give you a quick synopsis. Two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, are demon hunters. Their father, who Sam and Dean still seek, became obsessed with hunting evil forces when his wife was murdered by them. Sam tried to get away from this line of work by getting into law school and finding a girlfriend, but after their father went missing, Sam and Dean join up and travel the country to try to find him while exterminating demons along the way. Fast forward to the end season two, and not only were the gates of hell inadvertently opened by the brothers, but Sam was killed. Dean made a deal with a crossroads demon to resurrect his brother, but he only has one year to live.
Season three picks up with the second part of the Gates of Hell story. In the first episode, we learn that hundreds of demons have come through the gate and the brothers and fellow hunters around the world will have their hands full once the flow of strange and deadly events begins. Armed with holy water and guns, the brothers tackle a variety of supernatural horrors in this sixteen episode season. Episode one has the brothers facing the seven deadly sins in human form. Episode two features some darn scary young kids, while episode four is about a pagan god that has a unhealthy lust for blood. Other plots include a battle with a doctor from the 1800s that has kept himself alive by harvesting organs, and yet another is about a town whose citizens are all possessed by demons. This third season also sees the introduction of Ruby, a female demon hunter.
I found myself rather interested in Supernatural within just a few minutes of the first episode. There are enough sub-plots to keep you going from episode to episode, while the impressive visual effects, action, and yes stories, do a very good job of making each episode intriguing, generally from start to finish. I’ve also always liked stories that had two or more brothers working together, especially if they had their differences and didn’t always get along.
Demons On Blu-ray
This three disc Blu-ray release is presented in typical 1080p, 16:9 widescreen. The episodes looked great, partly due to the excellent work of the visual effects crew. This release also includes a Dolby Digital 5.1 track for English, and a 2.0 track for Spanish.
For packaging, a typical removable cardboard cover that contains a three disc keep case is used. Inside the keep case is a fold out color booklet containing images from the season and crew, as well as summaries of all sixteen episodes and a list of the extras. Extra features are present on all three discs, and include:
Disc 1 – A Closer Look – The first chapter of “A Closer Look” provides twelve minutes of interviews with writers and creators talking about inspirations and their thoughts on the episodes contained on this disc. Presented in SD.
Disc 2 – A Closer Look – Also in SD and running at about ten minutes, this is once again a collection of brief interviews with the crew talking about the episodes contained on the disc.
Disc 2 – Ghostfacers! Confessionals – A nearly seventeen minute feature in SD about the goofy ghost hunters from one of the episodes in the season. This is real filler as it doesn’t provide anything informative or entertaining.
Disc 3 – From Legends To Reality: Supernatural Effects – This is the best feature of the release and runs about twenty-three minutes. It contains a lot of making of type information and footage of how the producers and effects crew take concepts from books and online and lore in general, and turn them into what we see on the show.
Disc 3 – Supernatural Impala Featurette – This five minute piece includes the prop guy and two mechanics charged with keeping the ’67 Impala used on the show running and in place for shooting. They discuss the rarity of the vehicles, various repairs, and detail the load out of the Brothers’ demon hunting gear in the trunk.
Disc 3 – Gag Reel – This eight minute gag reel is full of bleeps, improv, and all matter of goofs on set. It’s kind of funny, given how serious or dark of a show that this is, but you won’t need to watch it a second time.
Supernatural is a good show; I hadn’t seen it before this third season came in for review, but having seen this now, I’m more intrigued than before to check out the first two seasons and the current fourth season that airs on CW. As far as the quality of this Blu-ray release, it’s not bad at all, but a few more extras would have helped make the price point a little easier to swallow.