Yet Another 'Supernatural' TV Series

There are things that go bump in the night. And Sam and Dean Winchester have taken it upon themselves to bump back.

That’s the premise of The WB’s Supernatural. This grim Hardy Boys-meets-Ghostbusters-meets-The Ring drama finds the Winchester brothers tooling around the country in a souped-up 1960s model Chevy, dispatching supernatural baddies as part of a larger pursuit of a ghoul that murdered their mother and Sam’s girlfriend, Jessica. The boys are also, well, haunted by the absence of their father, who is off hunting the phantom in his own way. So, underlying their journeys is an attempt to reunite with Dad, who always seems to be one step ahead of them.

More Lost Than Lost
Part of a larger trend this season of TV networks cashing in on the popularity of ABC’s Lost, (think Surface, The Ghost Whisperer, Invasion) Supernatural is perhaps the darkest of these offerings. Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) do not hunt generic, vaguely scary spooks. They hunt killers. Each week’s episode features a specific preternatural tall tale, from a Woman in White (the vengeful ghost of a woman scorned) to a Japanese disaster demon (this particular one specializes in bringing down airplanes). Recently they fought the legendary Bloody Mary—not the historical Mary Queen of Scots but the ghost of a woman who avenges wrongs done to others and who can be summoned by repeating her name three times in front of a mirror.

The (correct) idea that the supernatural realm contains dark elements underlies this show’s worldview. But it seems that Supernatural thinks just about everything "out there" is evil. At one point Dean tells Sam, “Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what’s out there!” And it seriously scrambles biblical teachings. For example, the disaster demon always brings down airplanes 40 minutes into their flights. “It’s biblical numerology,” Dean explains. “Like Noah and the 40 days of rain. The number means death.” (How, then, does that apply to the 40 days Jesus spent fasting and praying in the desert?) Not knowing which person on a plane is possessed by the demon, the brothers determine that speaking the name of God—in Latin, for some reason, even though the demon is Japanese—will cause the demon-possessed person to flinch. (Yeah, that’ll work!)

The brothers eventually defeat the demon by performing an exorcism in the plane’s center aisle even as the evil spirit tries to slam the aircraft into the ground. The exorcism doesn’t seem to require any specific religious beliefs, though, only the proper recitation of certain—evidently magical—Latin words.

Slippery Spooks and Squishy Morality
To be sure, the brothers are to be commended for their selfless pursuit of evil and their willingness to put themselves in danger to help others. And Sam gave up a potentially lucrative law career to pursue sinister spirits and often volunteers to do something that, if he fails, will result in his death. Not might kill him; will kill him. (Not that there's any real possibility that series creators will off their primary character in his first season!)

It’s the corners the Winchesters are willing to cut in the process that’s troubling. Dean in particular sees nothing wrong with routinely lying to, say, gain access to a building or get information out of an unwitting bystander. In one episode, he knocks two policemen unconscious when his lies begin to unravel. Dean is also adept at forging papers, creating fake IDs and exploiting bogus credit cards. In short, Sam and Dean are crooks on the lam—but crooks with good intentions, the show wants us to believe. Indeed, when a young lady balks at lying to her teacher, Dean coaches her, “Trust us, it’s for the greater good.”

Then there’s the gruesome content. Bloody Mary kills by liquefying the brains and eyeballs of her victims, with gross-out results. Viewers are also repeatedly “treated” to flashbacks of Mrs. Winchester's and Jessica's fiery deaths. Throw in some profanity, including the euphemism “frigging,” and you have a lot of content issues to deal with—and that’s before you get to any consideration of entertaining such a dark worldview in the first place.

Yes, there is a realm of “principalities and powers” spoken of in Scripture (Ephesians 6), but they’ve already lost the ultimate battle. We’re to be aware of them but not to be in thrall of them. So why invite them into your living room every week?