Supernatural…one of the last great TV box sets?
Supernatural: The Complete Series on Blu-ray (image courtesy Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
As many of you know if you follow Supernatural with any regularity, both the final season 15 and Supernatural: The Complete Series box set released on DVD and Blu-ray on May 25, 2021. Both have been available for pre-order for months now and most likely if you were interested in ordering one or both of them, you have already done so. With that in mind, this article is not a recap of a studio press release, rather I want to let fans know a little of the backstory to the exclusive documentary extras contained in the releases and why it is well worth your time to watch them.
But before I get to that, I can’t help but mention that in this new age of streaming, where the longest-running Netflix comedy or drama is 91 episodes (Orange Is The New Black), Supernatural: The Complete Series may be one of the last great TV on DVD and Blu-ray box sets. The release includes 15 seasons containing 327 episodes and approximately 3226 minutes of bonus extras (over 53 hours). The extras alone would take more than a full workweek to watch, and that’s if you were binging straight through. Just another reason to own the box set if you are a die-hard fan (or what I like to call Otaku). Is there any streamer that will pour that much time and budget into extras?
The Complete Series Blu-ray also contains a digital copy
While I was at Warner Bros., I had the privilege of working on the extras for the home entertainment release of Supernatural for 11 of the 15 seasons of its broadcast run. I also worked on the Blu-ray release of seasons 1 and 2 as Warner Home Video was not yet releasing TV on Blu-ray those first few seasons. During those 11 seasons, I came to know the Burbank production team, which consisted of the producers, writers, and post-production staff, as we were all located in a corporate building just off of the Warner Bros lot on the corner of Warner and Avon street (where the WB Studio Tour used to be located, for those who have ever taken that terrific tour). Not only was this staff talented (as proven by how many have now gone on to create or run other shows or write comics), but they were humble, eager to share with the fans who loved the show, and accessible to those of us who produced the behind-the-scenes content. That openness started with creator Eric Kripke and executive producer Bob Singer, the showrunners who launched what would go on to be the longest-running sci-fi show on American television. They approved the concepts and made themselves and their staff available for the interviews that we needed. They provided access to the cast and crew, and executive producer Jim Michaels in the Vancouver production office always made us welcome on set. These previous two sentences you may have read without much thought, but believe me when I say this openness to the bonus content team was hardly the norm in those early years. Subsequent showrunners Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver, and Andrew Dabb continued that openness to extras and it was the fans who purchased the DVDs and Blu-rays that kept the sales strong enough to support the budgets we needed. That is how we got to that eye-popping 53 hours of extras.
When I was originally assigned the show in its fourth season, I knew very little about Supernatural. The name was interesting - Supernatural. I grew up in a religious home. Was the show biblical? And then I started watching the first season. Supernatural was fun, sometimes downright scary, and cool. Some elements were religious, but the show wasn’t following a biblical narrative and the boys were anything but church boys. I was intrigued, and after watching the first three seasons on DVD over a few months, I was hooked. This show was good. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles were great together. The show had the right blend of religion, mythology, action, humor, and horror. And it had heart.
Filmmaker Jeff Maynard
It was during this fourth season that I met a documentary filmmaker by the name of Jeff Maynard. Jeff is laid back, with straight brown hair, a penchant for jeans, and comfortable shirts, and he speaks with a smooth, confident air. Quite possibly his unassuming style stems from his upbringing in Kansas (something I would only find out a few years later). Like many other aspiring filmmakers, he came to LA for film school. He got into the biz. And somehow he ended up working with me on Supernatural. That was the genesis of a creative collaboration that continues to this day.
Fast forward to season 12. (I may write about the intervening years when I do more podcasts on other unique SPN extras we’ve worked on, but for now, let’s skip ahead) I started thinking about concepts for the eventual end of Supernatural during season 12. There were questions now going into each year whether this would be the last season. The CW seemed content to let Jared and Jensen and the showrunners decide on when to conclude the series. The show had earned that privilege by now. But I wanted to be prepared. I had a notebook of ideas. I even pitched marketing the idea of a podcast for Supernatural starting with season 13 specifically because I thought the show was getting closer to the end. While the podcast wasn’t approved, we were all preparing for what we hoped would be a fantastic Complete Series box set.
Needless to say, once we found out season 15 would be the last, both Jeff and I wanted to do our best work. I asked Jeff to review all of the concepts we hadn’t done, in case there was a gem we might have overlooked. We pitched a documentary on the music, a round-table with the showrunners, a piece on “Baby” (the car for those who don’t watch the show), dozens of smaller concepts on the various departments. The budget to produce the full scope of our concepts was astronomical. There was no way marketing would approve anything close to what would be required. But in the early days, I wanted to present everything.
Midwestern Heroes revisits the original themes of the show
In the long run, marketing decided on three documentary extras, two of which survived the COVID-19 pandemic that descended on the world, and shut down all television and film production in March of 2020. Those two extras are “The End of the Road” and “Family Don’t End With Blood” and both are exclusive to the season 15 DVD and Blu-ray releases. The third, “The Winchester Mythology: Midwestern Heroes,” was created out of necessity since we couldn’t execute one of our concepts with the filming restrictions created by the COVID-19 shutdown. “Midwestern Heroes” was originally released as part of the season 15 Digital release, and is also a part of the season 15 DVD and Blu-ray.
If you buy the DVD or Blu-ray of season 15 or the box set, I hope you will watch these documentaries. They are the best video reference for the amazing story of the conclusion to the Supernatural journey. The footage of the final day of production that is the core of “The End of the Road” is poignant, heartfelt, a culmination of 327 episodes of hard work for a crew that strove to put the best story on the screen each week. The promise of Supernatural that the fans have been told is family, and on that last day, in those last moments, in the last speech from Bob Singer, we see and feel the truth of the Supernatural family. And that spirit of family is continued in “Family Don’t End With Blood” through the use of personal photos and stories of the cast and crew, and also the fans. If you are a hard-core Supernatural fan, an "Otaku” on all things SPN, then seeing these documentaries is something you need to experience for yourself. Possibly you have read or heard parts of the story of how the show dealt with the pandemic delaying the production of the final two episodes for five months. Well, Jeff has crafted a documentary experience that takes you on an emotional journey that will leave you satisfied that you now know the full story.
Tim and Jeff on location at the Crossroads
And yet, three documentaries are not enough for the final season. I already mentioned the notebook of ideas I had for Supernatural and the fact we could never have enough budget to film them all. So I went back to the creative well. And I decided a podcast was one way I could tell more behind-the-scenes stories from more perspectives without breaking the bank. To be clear, I no longer work for Warner Bros, so the podcast is not affiliated with the studio or show in any way. This time the bank is me.
So, while The Extras goes behind the scenes of all TV, film, and animation, we are launching with three podcasts about Supernatural, telling three different perspectives on the final season. One podcast is with Production Designer Jerry Wanek since we couldn’t get on set to film the tearing down of the sets or to film him and his team. I wanted to give Jerry a voice to tell their story. Another podcast is with the three editors on the last season, Don Koch, Jimmy Pickel, and John Fitzpatrick. These three men selected the shots, found the pace and rhythm to the story, and set the tone with music (temp or final) for every episode in the last season. Their contributions to the final product cannot be overstated, and it is way past time that we heard their point of view. And finally, there is a podcast with Jeff and me talking about the creation of the three documentary extras in the last season. It would be enough to talk about the extras of any last season of a TV show. But the last season interrupted with just two episodes left to film by a worldwide pandemic that left most of us fearfully trapped in our houses for the good part of a year? It’s a plot twist none of us saw coming. And as Don Koch says in his podcast, it’s a Supernatural episode in and of itself.
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