Friday, November 28, 2008

SUPERNATURAL SEASON 3 NOW AVAILABLE

Here is the summary for the Show Supernatural Season 3 from imdb

This television drama is about two brothers, Sam and Dean, who were raised by their father, John, to hunt and kill all things that go "bump in the night" after his wife, Mary, was murdered by something supernaturally evil when the boys were young. 22 years later the brothers set out on a journey, fighting evil along the way, to find their recently missing father who, when they finally meet up with, reveals he knows what killed their mother, a demon, and has found a way to track and kill it. Meanwhile, Sam starts to develop frightening abilities that include death visions, visions of people dying before it actually happens. These visions are somehow connected to the demon who murdered his mother and it's mysterious plans that seem to be all about Sam. When their father dies striking a deal with the very same devil that had killed his wife, the brothers, now alone and without their mentor, are determined to finish the crusade their father started. But disturbing revelations about Sam's part in the demon's apocalyptic plans are presented when John's dying last words to Dean are revealed. Written by Rachel B.

When Sam and Dean Winchester were just kids, their mother was horribly murdered in front of their father by something "supernatural". Their lives were never the same again. After their mother's murder, their father took an interest in the supernatural and the unexplained and raised the boys as warriors with skills to fight back against the unknown and protect the innocent. 22 years later, with Sam and Dean grown up, their father suddenly disappears on a suppose routine supernatural hunt. Sam and Dean search for their father and along the way help anyone with a supernatural problem with the help from their dad's journal that contains most of his knowledge about the supernatural that he had accumulated over his 22 years of none-stop obsessive hunting. Written by yatessixecho

22 years ago, John Winchester awoke in the middle of the night to find his wife, Mary, pinned to the ceiling, bleeding from the stomach, and set aflame. He managed to get his sons, 4-year-old Dean and six-month old Sam, out of the house, but Mary was killed leaving John devastated and determined for revenge against the supernatural thing that killed her. Present day, John has raised his sons to fight supernatural forces. Demons, ghosts, even cryptologic creatures. However, they can't find the thing that killed Mary. With his constant clashes with his father, Sam becomes disenchanted with the hunter's lifestyle, and goes away to college, where he falls in love with a girl named Jessica Moore. After years of estrangement, Dean shows up at Sam and Jess' one night to ask for Sam's help to look for their father who had gone missing during a "hunting trip". At first, Sam is reluctant to be roped back into the world of hunting and prefers his "safe" normal life he had managed to make for himself with Jess, but when he finds Jess dead through the same M.O. as their mother, he sets out with Dean to find their father by following any supernatural leads they can find across the country, hoping they track him down. Written by ryan_murphy

Here is a review for Season 3 of Supernatural from dvdtalk

The Movie:

Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles, Smallville), and his younger brother, Sam (Jared Padalecki, Gilmore Girls), have fake credit cards, no girlfriends, are wanted by the police, live like truckers (but with a nicer rig), and have the toughest jobs around; they're demon hunters.

After selling his soul to a demon at the end of Season Two to bring his brother Sam back from the dead, Dean was given one year to live, and Season Three follows the last several months of this agreement. Sam is by no means happy about the metaphorical Sword of Damocles hanging over Dean's head, and he believes Dean should be a little more concerned about going to hell than he appears. Throughout the season, though, Dean's nonchalance over the future of his soul breaks down, and Sam fights hard to find a way to get Dean out of the contract. However, if Dean tries to renege on the agreement, Sam is a goner. And it can be difficult to find time to research the demon that holds Dean's contract when they've had their hands full with the few hundred demons are so that were released into the world after Sam and Dean opened the gates to Hell at the end of Season Two.

But they have some help managing and disposing of the hellions that have infiltrated the globe. Of course, they can always count on Bobby (Jim Beaver, John From Cincinnati), a fellow hunter and family friend, but there's someone new that's demanded their attention, Ruby (Katie Cassidy, Click), who is not exactly a candy striper. She's a demon with a suspicious fondness for humanity ... and a really cool knife. In the not-so-helpful category is the new thorn in the Winchester's side, Bela (Lauren Cohan, Van Wilder 2), a British chick with a penchant for hard-to-find objects that she can sell to the highest bidder, often leaving Sam and Dean high and dry when it comes to important magical trinkets.

Only a few of the episodes were really disappointing. There's no question that Ackles and Padalecki can act; it was great to watch the normally macho Dean and the softer Sam switch personas through the season as Dean's time on earth was coming to a close. And while I was interested in the overarching storyline on Dean, episodes like "Bad Day at Black Rock," were among my favorites because of how Sam was dealing with the potential life without Dean, and because Ackles and Padalecki appear to be natural at comedy, this definitely played to their strengths. That particular episode focuses a lot on Sam, who is a great character embodied so well by Padalecki. The season's 16 episodes are spread over five discs, and the episodes are as follows:

Disc One

"The Magnificent Seven"

The seven deadly sins arrive in semi-human form, paving the way for the questionably helpful Ruby and her most definitely helpful supernatural knife. Considering this was the season premiere, I expected a quality story. This was a little boring.

Grade: C

"The Kids Are Alright

Dean gets a lot of leeway from Sam because of his impending death, but it pays off when they visit an old flame of Dean's and discover that her son, who's a ringer for Dean, and other kids in the neighborhood, aren't acting like themselves. Here we get the first inklings that Dean isn't ready to die; he imagines that he could have a son and a family.

Grade: A

"Bad Day at Black Rock"

Sam and Dean are alerted to a break-in attempt of an unknown storage locker owned by their dead father, also a demon hunter. A cursed object is stolen, and it leaves mostly bad luck wherever it goes. Not only do we meet the wretched Bela, but we get some lighthearted amusement from the brothers in the form of: Dean getting an ice-cream headache after winning free food for life; Sam looks like he's 9 years old when he complains that he lost a shoe; and Dean says the greatest line ever: "I am Batman."

Grade: A

Disc Two

"Sin City"

Bobby works on fixing the only gun guaranteed to kill a demon (a.k.a., the colt) and gets some help from Ruby, while Dean gets trapped by a demon but then proceeds to have a civil and even philosophical conversation with her about life in Hell. Not interesting enough for me, but it moved the story along well enough.

Grade: B

"Bedtime Stories"

Grimms' fairytales are reimagined ... and gross. Original fairytales, as it turns out, were more gruesome than ones we all know today, and murders around town are conspicuously reminiscent of a few well-known tales. Sam goes to the crossroads demon that made Dean his deal. Just to talk, of course.

Grade: B

"Red Sky at Morning"

Every 37 years, a ghost ship appears to "special" people. Those people end up dead. Bela could be one of them. Yay! This was one of those episodes, that was superfluous to the main storyline.

Grade: C

"Fresh Blood"

The guys stalk a vampire who is creating family members left and right. Gordon Walker (Sterling Brown, Brown Sugar), a hunter convinced Sam is evil, interrupts the boys' hunting. Also, Dean is acting like he doesn't care about his soul. It's as if he's "already dead."

Grade: A

Disc Three

"A Very Supernatural Christmas"

Great intro here; the show uses the old "Special Presentation," titling as in the 70s and 80s (they would often use them before Christmas specials). People are dying around Christmas time, and a pagan God is expected to be the culprit. An anti-Santa, if you will. Thanks to the holiday, we get a couple of flashbacks that answer the question why Sam is not really a Christmas person. But, since it is Dean's last major holiday, maybe he'll give in.

Grade: B

"Malleus Maleficarum"

Dean hates witches. "All the bodily fluids," he says. But, who better to stop murderous witches than Dean and Sam. Also, Dean has a serious conversation with Ruby about Hell. "Hell is forgetting what you were," she says.

Grade: A

"Dream a Little of Me"

Bobby's in a gosh-darned coma after taking some dream drugs. The guys track down the drugs and take a little themselves to get Bobby to wake up. At first, Dean's dreams are the most normal and even sad, but they quickly escalate to the horrific, making him decide that he really doesn't want to die. It complicates things though, when they lose a seemingly important piece of the make-sure-Dean-doesn't-die plan.

Grade: B

Disc Four

"Mystery Spot"

Where the laws of physics don't apply. Sam is doomed to repeat the day Dean dies over and over. I counted nine actual deaths, but Sam later mentions that he'd seen Dean's death more than 100 times. What would Sam be like without Dean?

Grade: B

"Jus In Bello"

I believe the title of the episode actually means "justice in war." The boys find themselves in prison, surrounded by what could be a hundred demons. Ruby's come to help, but her solution involves killing one innocent person. Is such an act justified if it saves dozens of others? It doesn't matter really, because the "big bad" is finally introduced, and it's a powerful demon in the body of a little girl named Lilith. It's interesting to note that Lilith's eyes actually turn white instead of the typical demonic black.

Grade: A

"Ghostfacers"

Investigating a haunted house shouldn't be this difficult. But, I guess when you have to deal with amateur filmmakers, nothing is easy. I really disliked this episode. It wasn't fun, and it gave me nothing in the way of actual story.

Grade: D

Disc Five

"Long-Distance Call"

Dean thinks he's getting a call from his dad from beyond the grave (in his case, Hell), but we all know demons can mess with electronics. I think he's getting stupid because he's close to dying. Come on Sam, slap some sense into him!

Grade: D

"Time Is on My Side

A doctor from the 19th century is still alive after he discovered the secret to immortality. This theory holds quite a draw for Sam as he thinks about the applications of this procedure for Dean. Unfortunately, the doctor still gets old and has to continually replace organs, etc., when they fail. Gross. Bela can understand the temptation to live forever. She's got some secrets of her own that are discovered.

Grade: B

"No Rest for the Wicked"

Prepare yourself for what the whole season has led up to. Dean's time on earth is up, but the whole gang -- well, Sam, Ruby, and Bobby, are in for one last fight with the demon that holds Dean's contract, Lilith. And Sam just might hold the key to defeating her, inside him! And just because she's in child form, does not mean she's unintelligent; she's got a couple of tricks she's working on, too. This episode also gets a good grade because it left me with so many questions while eagerly anticipating the Season Four premiere.

Grade: A

The Disc:
Video:

There are times when episodes of this standard-definition set looks as if they are in high definition. Of course, I know that's not true, but the close-up shots still enable me to get a good view of Ackles' razor burn or a nice mole on Padalecki's face. Since this is the case, I can only imagine the high-definition version of this set (which will be available November 11, 2008), will be even more impressive.

Audio:

I had major issues with the audio. On the special features, especially, it was hard to set an adequate volume that you didn't have to adjust for blown-out sequences or other surprises. If the dialogue was recorded and leveled out properly, this wouldn't be an issue, but maybe it is to scare the crap out of you, I don't know.

Extras:

The majority of this set's extras consisted of what were called "Scene Specifics," two to four-minute featurettes in which a member of the writing/director/producing team for a particular episode talked about hey, specific scenes and what was involved in their writing, directing, or producing. For the most part, it was pretty general information, but there was a few interesting things mentioned, such as the basis for "The Kids Are Alright," which came from thinking about how creepy children could be (Creator/Executive Producer Eric Kripke had recently had a child). The Visual Effects Supervisor in "Red Sky at Morning" had kind of an interesting task to create two people made out of water that crashed into each other. In "A Very Supernatural Christmas," Kripke mentions that he wanted to portray the most brutal Christmas ever, and that after the episode, his family called him and asked what was wrong with him. Here's the complete list of available "scene specific" featurettes, which are all on the discs with their respective episodes:

The Magnificent Seven: Scene specifics with Director Kim Manners, 2:19

The Kids Are Alright: Scene specifics with Kripke, 3:06

Bad Day at Black Rock: Scene specifics with Writer Ben Edlund, 2:41

Red Sky at Morning: Scene specifics with VFX Supervisor Ivan Hayden, 3:37

A Very Supernatural Christmas: Scene specifics with Kripke, 3:04

Dream a Little of Me: Scene specifics with Kripke, 4:04

Jus In Bello: Scene specifics with Writer Sera Gamble, 3:22

However, there were a few additional extras, including a 16-minute special on the episode "Ghostfacers!" In the episode, the amateur filmmakers film a pilot episode of their show. This extra is the cast of the "Ghostfacers!" show being interviewed as they prepare the pilot to send to network execs. There are some funny pieces of this, like when one of the cast members explains how networks determine what shoes to pick up is based on the Nielsen ratings. The other person in the conversation then asks why they are sending it to network people when they should just be sending it to Nielsen. There were volume issues on pieces of this extra, and it required some messing about with the receiver.

"From Legends to Reality: Supernatural" is the longest feature at 23 minutes on disc five. It combines looks at the visual, special, and makeup effects, and how those teams work together to complete what a scene needs. A few interesting things I learned: the effects guys use pieces of cherries in their blood to make it a little more visceral (in fact, there was a container I saw labeled: "thick chunks," which was pretty funny). This feature also covers the graphic part of the black smoke, which is the graphic representation of demons traveling.

The eight-minute gag reel isn't too bad. Maybe three minutes of it is really worth watching. Ackles and Padalecki (especially) do a ton of mugging for the camera. Padalecki has really got some creepy model look going, where he closes his eyes and sort of sucks in his cheeks like a fish. To use a line from Arrested Development 'How much can I pay you to not make that face?' Lastly, a five-minute look at Dean's famous 1967 Chevy Impala is talked about by those on the show that are in charge of the cars. There is even one guy on here whose title is "Picture Car Wrangler." That is hilarious. In a nice touch, the entire season is available for digital download via iTunes or can be downloaded and played with Windows Media Player.

I was a more than a little disappointed in the extras for the season. Getting the back story on the effects for the show was nice but certainly not groundbreaking. And it's hard to believe there were no commentaries included on any of the episodes or any interaction whatsoever with the two main actors, especially for a show with a seemingly cult-like following. Maybe next season could include a video of the time they spent at the July 2008 Comic-Con, in which I hear their presentation was well-received and they were actually interacting with the fans.

Final Thoughts:

There were some great episodes this season, including several light-hearted moments that really set off the creative humor of the writers, and the introduction of Lilith as the mega demon was a great change of pace, because let's face it, little girls ARE creepy! The season finale left a great cliffhanger that I'm sure sparked many viewers to begin the search online for Season Four spoilers. Season Three is a highly entertaining compilation of the predicaments involving my two favorite demon hunters.

There are more than enough monsters in this season to keep you (or get you) hooked on the show. But if you haven't seen it, hurry up already--you must get up-to-date before we find out what life is like for the Winchesters in Season Four!

Here are the direct downloads for the show Supernatural season 3.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9

Episode 10

Episode 11

Episode 12

Episode 13

Episode 14

Episode 15

Episode 16

SUPERNATURAL SEASON 2 NOW AVAILABLE

Here is the summary for the show Supernatural Season 2 from imdb

This television drama is about two brothers, Sam and Dean, who were raised by their father, John, to hunt and kill all things that go "bump in the night" after his wife, Mary, was murdered by something supernaturally evil when the boys were young. 22 years later the brothers set out on a journey, fighting evil along the way, to find their recently missing father who, when they finally meet up with, reveals he knows what killed their mother, a demon, and has found a way to track and kill it. Meanwhile, Sam starts to develop frightening abilities that include death visions, visions of people dying before it actually happens. These visions are somehow connected to the demon who murdered his mother and it's mysterious plans that seem to be all about Sam. When their father dies striking a deal with the very same devil that had killed his wife, the brothers, now alone and without their mentor, are determined to finish the crusade their father started. But disturbing revelations about Sam's part in the demon's apocalyptic plans are presented when John's dying last words to Dean are revealed. Written by Rachel B.

When Sam and Dean Winchester were just kids, their mother was horribly murdered in front of their father by something "supernatural". Their lives were never the same again. After their mother's murder, their father took an interest in the supernatural and the unexplained and raised the boys as warriors with skills to fight back against the unknown and protect the innocent. 22 years later, with Sam and Dean grown up, their father suddenly disappears on a suppose routine supernatural hunt. Sam and Dean search for their father and along the way help anyone with a supernatural problem with the help from their dad's journal that contains most of his knowledge about the supernatural that he had accumulated over his 22 years of none-stop obsessive hunting. Written by yatessixecho

22 years ago, John Winchester awoke in the middle of the night to find his wife, Mary, pinned to the ceiling, bleeding from the stomach, and set aflame. He managed to get his sons, 4-year-old Dean and six-month old Sam, out of the house, but Mary was killed leaving John devastated and determined for revenge against the supernatural thing that killed her. Present day, John has raised his sons to fight supernatural forces. Demons, ghosts, even cryptologic creatures. However, they can't find the thing that killed Mary. With his constant clashes with his father, Sam becomes disenchanted with the hunter's lifestyle, and goes away to college, where he falls in love with a girl named Jessica Moore. After years of estrangement, Dean shows up at Sam and Jess' one night to ask for Sam's help to look for their father who had gone missing during a "hunting trip". At first, Sam is reluctant to be roped back into the world of hunting and prefers his "safe" normal life he had managed to make for himself with Jess, but when he finds Jess dead through the same M.O. as their mother, he sets out with Dean to find their father by following any supernatural leads they can find across the country, hoping they track him down. Written by ryan_murphy

Here is a review for the show Supernatural Season 2 from dvdtalk

The Show:

The first season of Supernatural was a good, solid adventure/horror show that was a lot of fun to watch. The program was filled with promise, and The CW network had the good sense to renew the it. Season 2 has just been released on DVD, and the show really comes into its own this season. These episodes flesh out and expand on the main character's personalities, have some suspenseful stories, bring in new reoccurring characters, and develop the world that Sam and Dean live in. This season turns the program from an entertaining show into a modern-day classic.

Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki & Jensen Ackles respectively) are hunters. They don't hunt animals for food or sport however, they hunt supernatural creatures. It all started 23 years ago when their mother was killed by a demon. Their father John (ably played by Jeffery Dean Morgan), an ex-marine, vowed to hunt down the monster that killed his wife. He spent the intervening years searching for it while ridding the world of other evil that he encountered. John Winchester raised his children to follow in his footsteps, teaching them to track, stalk, and kill evil wherever they found it, and they learned the lessons well.

Warning: The next two paragraphs contain information about the conclusion of the first season and events that take place in the first episode of this season. If you'd prefer avoid spoilers, skip down to here.

In the first season, John turns up missing and Dean and Sam spend most of the series looking for him. Surprisingly they do find him and the demon that killed their mother. The demon escapes, but so do the three Winchesters. The season ends with the trio of hunters riding in Dean's car, two of them wounded, planning their next move. The last shot is of a semi driven by a demon plowing into their car.

The second season opens just seconds later. Everyone in the car is hurt, but Dean is the worst, he's nearly dead. As a matter of fact, he should die, but John manages to crawl out of his hospital bed and performs a ritual to summon the demon they've been hunting. He agrees to give up his soul and the only earth-made weapon that can harm the demon in exchange for letting his son live. As John drops dead in a hospital room floor, Dean makes a miraculous recovery.

Dean restores his wrecked 1967 Chevy Impala himself, and the two brothers are back in business. They haven't given up on finding the demon, but there're other things that are worrying them. For one, what did the demon mean when he said that he has plans for Sam? They head to a place their father once mentioned: The Roadhouse. It's an old run-down bar out in the middle of nowhere that happens to be a favorite haunt of hunters. Hunters like Sam and Dean. The scope of the show opens up a lot and viewers discover that there are a handful of dedicated people like the Winchesters who hunt monsters. The Roadhouse is run by Ellen (Samantha Ferris) the widow of a hunter and her attractive daughter Jo (Alona Tal). A regular there is Ash (Chad Lindberg), a scruffy guy with a mullet ("all business in the front, party in the back") who drinks the booze people leave in their glasses and sleeps on the pool table. Oh yeah, and he has a degree from MIT and is an electronics genus. He helps the boys track paranormal occurrences in the US which they all hope will lead them to the demon.

This season, like the last, has the boys facing a different monster every episode. They encounter werewolves, ghosts, demonic clowns, and vampires along with a host of other nasties. Like the previous season, this year the episodes are very creepy. Supernatural has a dark feel and there are moments of gore in most episodes, though this is never overboard and relatively minor. It does keep you on the edge of your seat however. Battling a mixture of urban legends and more standard horror monsters, the episodes mostly all involve a murderous creature, and while most of the vivisection and such occur off screen, they effectively imply what's going on.

The thing that makes this season so engaging is that there's a lot of continuity. The episodes are still stand alone stories, but things that happened in the past (i.e. last season) come back to haunt them. (No pun intended.) While they've been hunting, Sam and Dean have had some run-ins with the police. The file got so big (and they've been linked to more than one murder) that now the FBI is on their trail which makes doing their job much more difficult. There's a persistent agent tracking them down, and he's almost as good at finding someone as they are.

The main reason that this is such a stand-out season is that there's a theme running through many of the episodes, and that's the cost that Sam and Dean have had to pay. Not only are they living a migrant lifestyle and on the run from the feds, but it's taken an emotional toll on them. It's not easy constantly fighting and killing evil things, and though they are saving countless lives, they never even get a "thanks". Dean, the cool and in control older brother, comes close to breaking at times, and Sam doesn't fare much better. Both characters are fleshed out over the course of this season and it's because of that examination of what drives them that some of the later episodes are so powerful.

This is one of the few season sets where I can honestly say I really enjoyed each and every episode. There isn't a dud in the bunch, and that's pretty amazing. Even great shows have their off moments, but Supernatural was hitting on all cylinders the entire year. There were some episodes that stood above the rest however. The two-part season finale was fantastic, and though it didn't end in a cliff-hanger like last year's show, it did leave viewers counting the days until next season begins. The most touching and emotional show was What is and What Should Never Be, where Dean encounters a Djinn. The creature touches him on the head, and Dean wakes up in another reality. One where his mother never died, he and his brother never became hunters, and his father ran a garage and played baseball. Dean has a loving (and gorgeous) girlfriend, Sam's in law school at Stanford and everything seems to be perfect. The only problem is that Dean knows that it's not real. Can he ignore that and just live in the fantasy world?

The Usual Suspects is another great episode which guest-starred Linda Blair as a Baltimore police detective. Dean lands in hot water when he is caught at the scene of a murder with the victim's blood on his hands. It's a bad spot to be in but when Dean's fingerprints come back and the police discover that he's listed as deceased and wanted for murder, things go from bad to worse. On top of all that, Sam and Dean still need to find the ghost who has been killing people and put it to rest. Blair does a great job and the writers even made references to her most famous role, which was a lot of fun.

Though there were many suspenseful and spooky episodes, this season had a couple of shows that were played for laughs. Tall Tales is one of them. The brothers call in Bobby, an old hunter friend of their father's, to help them figure out what's going on in a small college town. The brothers take turns relating the events, and they both take joy painting their sibling in the worst light possible. The highlight of the show has to be where the Frat guy tells them what happened when he was taken aboard a UFO. He was anally probed over and over and over, but that wasn't the worst. Afterwards the alien forced him to slow dance. A wonderfully comic episode.

The other laugh-out-loud funny show in this season is Hollywood Babylon, a satiric look at tinsel town. When the Winchesters start investigating a haunted set, Dean becomes a PA on a movie and starts to really enjoy it. You can tell that everyone associated with this episode had a great time throwing in their own Hollywood horror stories. The jabs at idiotic producers, thoughtless directors and hack re-write men are hilarious.

Stars Jensen Ackles (Days of Our Lives) and Jared Padalecki (Gilmore Girls) have really grown into their roles and work exceedingly well together. They really have great on-screen chemistry. At one point my son even commented that "It's hard to believe that they are just two actors who didn't even know each other before the show started. It seems like they are real brothers." He's right. They fight and bicker quite realistically and the interaction between the two actors is a real driving force in the show. In the hands of lesser actors the program wouldn't be nearly as entertaining and enjoyable.

The DVD:

Audio:

This season the show gets upgraded to a DD5.1 mix. Like the first season, I was happy to discover that the original music was kept in tact. The background music mainly consists of classic rock by groups such as AC/DC, Boston, and Styx, among others, and it goes a long way towards creating the show's unique atmosphere. I'm very pleased that it was included. (Presumably producers are now including the DVD rights when they clear a song for use in a TV show, which is a good thing.) As for the sound quality, it was very good. The dialog is crisp and clean and the sound effects are never overpowered by the music. Distortion, hiss, dropouts, and other audio defects were absent.

Video:

The 1.78:1 widescreen anamorphic image looked very good. The show was shot and mastered in HD and the resulting standard definition DVD has a good amount of detail. The image is sharp and the blacks are deep and dark. The show has a dark atmosphere with a lot of scenes taking place in sewers, dark warehouses, and abandoned buildings late at night. These low light scenes were reproduced very well, with details still present in the shadows and colors appropriately toned. On the digital side, things also look good with only a little minor aliasing in a few scenes. Overall a nice looking set.

Extras:

There are some nice extras included with this season. There are three commentaries this time around. The season premier, In My Time of Dying, features the thoughts of stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles as well as the director Kim Manners. This was my favorite commentary; it's always fun to hear Jared and Jensen's comments. One of the best episodes, What is and What Should Never Be, features a commentary by series creator/director Eric Kripke, and All Hell Breaks Loose Part One, the first half of the season closer, has an alternate commentary track by Erick Kripke, director Robert Singer, and writer Sera Gamble. All three were entertaining and related some interesting behind the scenes tidbits.

There's a gag reel that's pretty funny, several deleted scenes, and an interactive feature, The Devil's Road Map. This last item is a map of the US where you can highlight different towns that the show visited this season. At each stop they have some information on the monsters that were confronted. It wasn't too exciting.

Jared's original screen test is included, which is a lot of fun to watch, and there's also three 'webisodes' short featurettes there were presented on the show's web site. These include an interview with Ivan Hayden the special effects supervisor, a talk with the writers, and an interview with prop master Christopher Cooper.

Finally the packaging lists The Episode from Hell: The Making of All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2 as a bonus that's included on the discs. At first I couldn't find it, but then alter reader Wrenn e-mailed and told me where it was located: On the Devil's Road Map - spot 22. This 11-minute feature has the producers discussing the final episode and the problems that they faced filming it. The first hurdle was that the original script worked out to about 5½ hours of air time, something that they just couldn't do. They whittled and cut and finally managed to get it down to two hours, including commercials. I wish they would have included the original script as an extra, it would have been interesting to see if the elongated version was any better.

Final Thoughts:

The first season was very good, but this set of shows is great. Literally every episode is entertaining and enjoyable, and there're not many shows you can say that about. The program is creepy and eerie with just the right amount of humor thrown in. In my review of the first season, I said that the show was like a cross between the X-files and The Fugitive. In this season the program has really evolved into a unique show that doesn't seem like a cobbling together of other popular series. The picture is great and the 5.1 sound fits the show well. This is just a great package. Highly Recommended.

Here are the direct downloads for Supernatural Season 2.

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9

Episode 10

Episode 11

Episode 12

Episode 13

Episode 14

Episode 15

Episode 16

Episode 17

Episode 18

Episode 19

Episode 20

Episode 21

Episode 22

SUPERNATURAL SEASON 1 NOW AVAILABLE

Here is the summary for the show Supernatural Season 1 from imdb

This television drama is about two brothers, Sam and Dean, who were raised by their father, John, to hunt and kill all things that go "bump in the night" after his wife, Mary, was murdered by something supernaturally evil when the boys were young. 22 years later the brothers set out on a journey, fighting evil along the way, to find their recently missing father who, when they finally meet up with, reveals he knows what killed their mother, a demon, and has found a way to track and kill it. Meanwhile, Sam starts to develop frightening abilities that include death visions, visions of people dying before it actually happens. These visions are somehow connected to the demon who murdered his mother and it's mysterious plans that seem to be all about Sam. When their father dies striking a deal with the very same devil that had killed his wife, the brothers, now alone and without their mentor, are determined to finish the crusade their father started. But disturbing revelations about Sam's part in the demon's apocalyptic plans are presented when John's dying last words to Dean are revealed. Written by Rachel B.

When Sam and Dean Winchester were just kids, their mother was horribly murdered in front of their father by something "supernatural". Their lives were never the same again. After their mother's murder, their father took an interest in the supernatural and the unexplained and raised the boys as warriors with skills to fight back against the unknown and protect the innocent. 22 years later, with Sam and Dean grown up, their father suddenly disappears on a suppose routine supernatural hunt. Sam and Dean search for their father and along the way help anyone with a supernatural problem with the help from their dad's journal that contains most of his knowledge about the supernatural that he had accumulated over his 22 years of none-stop obsessive hunting. Written by yatessixecho

22 years ago, John Winchester awoke in the middle of the night to find his wife, Mary, pinned to the ceiling, bleeding from the stomach, and set aflame. He managed to get his sons, 4-year-old Dean and six-month old Sam, out of the house, but Mary was killed leaving John devastated and determined for revenge against the supernatural thing that killed her. Present day, John has raised his sons to fight supernatural forces. Demons, ghosts, even cryptologic creatures. However, they can't find the thing that killed Mary. With his constant clashes with his father, Sam becomes disenchanted with the hunter's lifestyle, and goes away to college, where he falls in love with a girl named Jessica Moore. After years of estrangement, Dean shows up at Sam and Jess' one night to ask for Sam's help to look for their father who had gone missing during a "hunting trip". At first, Sam is reluctant to be roped back into the world of hunting and prefers his "safe" normal life he had managed to make for himself with Jess, but when he finds Jess dead through the same M.O. as their mother, he sets out with Dean to find their father by following any supernatural leads they can find across the country, hoping they track him down. Written by ryan_murphy

Here is a review for Season 1 of Supernatural

The Show:

Out of the crop of SF/horror/suspenseful mystery shows to debut in the 2005 television season, the one that had the most success wasn't from ABC, NBC, CBS, or Fox. Oddly enough it was a little show that aired on WB, Supernatural. Nominated for two Emmy's as well as a Saturn Award, the show was able to do something else that its competitors, (Invasion, Threshold, and Surface) weren't able to do: Supernatural was renewed for a second season. The show's first season has now been released on DVD, and it's a show that deserves a wider audience because it's very good. It brings back quality creepiness to prime time TV.

In the middle of a calm quiet night, a young mother of two wakes up and checks on her baby Sam and sees a dark foreboding figure crouching over his crib. Screaming, she wakes up her husband who rushes into the nursery to find the baby sleeping quietly, and his wife stuck to the ceiling her stomach horribly cut open. Giving the baby to his four-year old son and telling him to run out of the house, the husband tries to save his wife only to see her burst into flames that engulf the whole house burning it to the ground.

Fast forward 22 years. Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) is now attending Stanford and has plans to attend law school. He has a beautiful girlfriend and a close circle of friends. That all changes when his older, estranged, brother Dean shows up one night. Dean informs Sam that their father, who Sam hasn't talked to in over two years, has gone on a hunting trip and is a few days late checking in.

This is bad news because their father hunts supernatural creatures. Ever since the death of his wife, John Winchester has scoured the country killing every evil demon, ghost and ghoul that he can find. He's been looking for the demon that killed his wife, and though he hasn't found the creature yet, he's not about to give up.

Dean and Sam have been trained for the past two decades to fight evil too, and were very good at it until Sam gave up two years ago to attend college. He wanted a normal life, and grew tired of the constant violence and danger. He agrees to help his brother track down the one lead they have to their father's whereabouts as long as he's back at school by Monday.

Though they don't find their father, they do rid the world of a ghost, and Dean is good on to his word and returns Sam to his apartment late Sunday night. Flopping down on his bed, Sam opens his eyes to see his girlfriend attached to the ceiling with her stomach sliced, just as his mother was years before. As she bursts into flames, Sam decides that he no longer wants to be a lawyer. He and his brother are going to find their father, and kill the demon who has been tormenting them. The slightly mismatched brothers start their journey, driving around the country in a beautiful black 1967 Chevrolet Impala, searching for their father and killing as many creatures of the night as they can along the way.

This show is a mix of The Fugitive and X-Files with just a dollop of Hardy Boys thrown in for good measure, and it works very well. There's a fair amount of continuity, mainly searching for the father and learning more about the brother's past and that keeps the show from being repetitive. It never feels like a 'monster of the week' type program. They aren't just using the same script every week and just changing the supernatural threat. This is a pitfall that a lot of horror television shows fall into, and I'm glad Supernatural has been able to avoid it. The overriding plot also advances as the series goes on, significant events take place in this season, and it's not like a series from the 50's where the heroes never get any closer to the answer that they are searching for.

The show is very creepy too. It has a dark feel, and there are moments of gore in most episodes, though this is never overboard and relatively minor. It does keep you on the edge of your seat however. Battling a mixture of urban legends and more standard horror monsters, the episodes mostly all involve a murderous creature, and while most of the vivisection and such occur off screen, they effectively imply what's going on.

There are also some nice moments of humor that are adding into the show to relieve the tension. In once scene the brothers refer to themselves as Agent Scully and Agent Mulder, and though the show is never gets silly or totally breaks the mood, the light elements are a nice touch.

Stars Jansen Eckles (Days of Our Lives) and Jared Padalecki (Gilmore Girls) work well together and have a nice on-screen chemistry. They fight and bicker quiet realistically and in general behave like real brothers. They do a good job in the show, and the only real complaint that I have it that they are a bit too attractive (and all the women they meet are bombshells.) It would be nice to see someone who looks like a real person every once in a while, but that's a minor complaint.

The DVD:


The 22 episodes that comprise the first season are presented on six DVDs. These come in one of those fold out cases, with two overlapping discs on each page. I really dislike fold out cases and overlapping discs, so this isn't one of my favorite packages. The discs are housed in a nice slipcase.

Audio:

The show comes with a Dolby Digital Stereo Surround mix that fits the show well. The program would have benefitted from a discrete 5.1 mix, but this soundtrack was adequate. One of the first things that I noticed was that they kept the original music which consists of classic hard rock by groups such as AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Iron Butterfly, among others. This music helped set a tone for the show, and I'm glad that it was included. (Presumably producers are now including the DVD rights when they clear a song for use in a TV show, which is a good thing.) As for the sound quality, it was very good. Some use was made of the soundstage, especially the front, and the dialog wasn't overpowered by the music or sound effects. Distortion, hiss, dropouts, and other audio defects were absent.

Video:

The 1.78:1 widescreen anamorphic image looked very good. The show was shot and mastered in HD and the resulting standard definition DVD has a good amount of detail. The image is sharp and the blacks are deep and dark. The show has a dark atmosphere with a lot of scenes taking place in sewers, dark warehouses, and abandoned buildings late at night. These low light scenes were reproduced very well, with details still present in the shadows and colors appropriately toned. On the digital side, things also look good with only a little minor aliasing in a few scenes. Overall a nice looking set.

Extras:

There are some nice extras included with this first season. There are two commentaries, one for the pilot with creator Eric Kripke, director David Nutter and producer Peter Johnson, and the other for the episode Phantom Traveler with stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. There are deleted scenes for seven episodes, a 21-minute featurette on the creation of the series Supernatural: Tales From The Edge Of Darkness. One rather fluffy bonis item was Day In The Life Of Jared And Jensen that followed the two stars over the course of a shooting day. The bonus material is rounded out with a gag reel and a stills gallery.

Final Thoughts:

If you're looking for a creepy show that has a good mixture of mystery, suspense, and horror, this is the show for you. One of the few horror shows on TV that really work well, it has some eerie moments and some good suspense. While it's not as intense as a theatrical horror film, it is as close as television gets. This series gets a high recommendation.

Here are the direct downloads for season 1 of Supernatural

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10
Episode 11
Episode 12
Episode 13
Episode 14
Episode 15
Episode 16
Episode 17
Episode 18
Episode 19
Episode 20
Episode 21
Episode 22