Folks just cannot get enough of hot young people haring around in cool muscle cars and blowing away monsters. That simple formula sustained Supernatural for a whopping 15 seasons (327 episodes!) and now we’ve got a prequel series, with season one of The Winchesters now streaming on Binge.
Set way back in swingin’ 1972, the Winchesters lays out how the family tradition of monster hunting got started. Back from his hitch in Vietnam, John Winchester (Drake Rodger stepping into Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s monster-stompin’ shoes) has a meet-cute with Mary Campbell (Meg Donnelly), who knows a thing or two about the supernatural and is looking for her missing father (which should sound familiar to fans).
Cue magical conspiracies, demons, a really nifty loup-garou, and more—and that’s just in the pilot.
We know these two are going to spawn the dynamic duo of Sam and Dean—indeed, Jensen Ackles is on voiceover duties on this one, narrating the 70s-set monster mayhem. Some fans have gotten a bit bent out of shape over perceived inconsistencies between The Winchesters and Supernatural. John canonically became a monster hunter after Mary was killed by the demon Azazel, raising his sons to fight the same covert war. Here we see him tangling with all manner of weirdness well before then. But a) a little faith that the creators know what they’re doing wouldn’t go astray, and b) if that’s the price for a few seasons of groovy Watergate-era horror action, so be it.
We also get former Superman (well, Clark Kent) Tom Welling as Mary’s absent father, Sam, a piece of casting sure to make viewers of a certain vintage consider their mortality, and a couple of fun new hunter characters in the form of Latika (Nida Khurshid) and Carlos (Jojo Fleites). Plus, the show retains its predecessor’s classic rock soundtrack, only now the tunes are technically contemporary. Monsters, a muscle car, and some bangin’ tunes on the 8-track? We’re in.
