There is a Friday night ritual in my house that has been carried out as long as I can remember. Before we got cable, we would go to the local video store, back when there still were video stores, and get pizza and a movie. My entire family would eat pizza at the dining room table, and then we would crowd around in the living room and watch whatever movie had been scooped up at the store.
Over the years, pizza Friday has begun to fade. The dining room table now holds paperwork built up during the week, my sister and my dad are usually working, and the video store is only a distant memory. In 2006, we got DIRECTV, and I remember it being a big deal because everyone else I knew in school had cable. Even my teachers used to give me funny looks when I would tell them we only had three channels on our TV.
Those first few days with hundreds upon hundreds of channels were a shock to the system. For a while we clung to those three channels for fear of being swallowed up in a sea of networks that we knew absolutely nothing about. In due time, channel surfing became normal, and instead of waiting for only one show per week to come on ABC, we could watch a different show every night.
Friday became “Ghost Whisperer” and “Supernatural” night for my mother and me. Suddenly pizza was back at the table, and our living room was full again. “Ghost Whisperer” ran for five seasons and was cancelled in 2010, but “Supernatural” is still going strong.
After nine seasons the CW keeps renewing the show, time and time again. Eric Kripke, the show’s creator, originally wanted “Supernatural” to be a movie. However, it made more sense for it to be a TV series so that each episode could weave in and out of Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester’s road trip.
Sam and Dean are brothers who fight against demons, ghosts, witches and occasionally the devil himself, in the battle to save the world. Riding from town to town in their father’s jet-black ‘67 Chevrolet Impala, the boys must stay alive and come to terms with their destiny. Both are merely pawns in a chess game between heaven and hell.
The show started off strong in its first season, premiering on Sept. 13, 2005 with an estimated 5.69 million viewers. Now in its ninth season, the show garners around 2.52 million viewers and instead of being shown on Fridays now is shown on Tuesdays.
While we may have caught up technology-wise when it comes to cable and high speed Internet, there is still one thing my family is missing: DVR. There is a video cassette player that sits on top of our DVD player and every week my mother pops in a blank cassette to record “Supernatural” so that she can watch it at the end of the week.
Since leaving for college I haven’t had time to catch up on what is happening with Sam and Dean. But when I go home I know I won’t have to worry about what is happening on “Supernatural,” because if it’s Friday night I know exactly where I will be – on the couch with my mother, as she pops “Supernatural” into the player.
