REVIEW: The Winchesters – Season 1, Episode 1 “Pilot”

Television Reviews

After nearly two years, the Supernatural franchise is back with the series premiere of The Winchesters. Even though Supernatural is a beloved property, many fans were initially concerned following the announcement of this prequel, considering its subject matter. The story of John and Mary Winchester was told during the main show. Fears of lore and character inaccuracies were all proved true with the release of The Winchesters’ pilot. This prequel breaks canon at nearly every single opportunity, merely making references to names and types of monsters previously known. None of the events track with — and, in most cases, contradict — what has come before.

Beyond the rife and constant lore-breaking, The Winchesters is simply poorly written. Supernatural long managed to remain free from the corporate oversight of The CW, which usually requires all its products to be generic and homogeneous at the very best. That is not the case for The Winchesters. This show is as CW as it gets; all the clichés and ineptitude that define the studio are exemplified to the max in this series. It seems impossible that the immensely talented Jensen Ackles was the creative mind behind this project. Not all good actors can become good writers and directors.

The intended emotional heart of The Winchesters is the relationship between John and Mary, beginning with their first meeting. However, the actors have little to no chemistry with one another and are entirely underwhelming in their roles. Neither of them is offensively bad, yet neither offers anything that comes across as even basically competent. This is partially due to an overreliance on cheesy lines. Even still, their delivery is almost always a detriment to each scene. All the actors in this show would be fine enough guest stars for minor or occasional appearances, but none of them possess the talent nor experience to carry a series. All of them overact, giving overdramatic stares into the distance whenever they’re being exposited at. Without the emotional heart of the series getting delivered to the audience well, there is little chance of this series ever becoming even just OK. After two years away from the franchise, fans hoped for a far better reintroduction into it than this.

**Spoilers**

As a CW show, this pilot centers around talking in hallways, talking in alleys, talking in cars, and an endless tirade of immature and superficial emotions. Far too little action or character development is depicted. The pilot follows John, who recently returned from Vietnam in search of his father. He comes across Mary, who is also looking for her father. Their investigations converge upon the Men of Letters, a monster trap box they possess, and a greater mystery of interdimensional aliens coming to destroy the planet. Overdramatic can describe nearly every aspect of this episode. Every actor acts as if they’re delivering complex Shakespeare lines they don’t understand, while the words coming out of their mouths are simple and convey virtually nothing of substance. Every scene feels like it’s supposed to be grand and bombastic, yet it’s contradicted by the characters, scenery, and the actual events transpiring.

Even the threat of a coming interdimensional alien invasion seems foreign in this series, especially when canon is taken into consideration. John and Mary had trouble believing in many of the greater threats their sons faced in the future. However, if they had thwarted an alien invasion in their youth, there is no way that they would be surprised by the revelations in Supernatural. A simpler seasonal antagonist was essential for The Winchesters, partially due to criticism that Supernatural too often felt the need to one-up itself with bigger and bigger villains. A return to form and basic monster hunting was necessary for the established lore, these characters at this point in their lives, and for the audience to reinvest in this world. Going too big too fast can create major issues later on in a series. All these attempts at dramatization come across as sad more than anything else.

For lore breaks, one simple fact cannot be disputed, yet the opening moments ignore it. John knows nothing of hunting until Mary’s death or his father’s exploits with the Men of Letters except briefly when he travels to 2019. He only ever had a cursory involvement in supernatural events before Mary died. The first left him absent for the majority of the unbelievable moments, which saw the yellow-eyed demon making a deal with Mary for Sam’s soul. For the second, he had his mind wiped of the angelic interference in his family by the archangel Michael, preventing him from remembering his sons who had traveled into the past to save him and Mary from the angel Anna. For Mary, she was a hunter, but she never knew anything about the Men of Letters until she was resurrected in 2011. These simple facts make this series virtually impossible, which is what initially inspired fans’ concerns upon its announcement. Instead of addressing these points of history, The Winchesters merely ignores them, pretending as if the audience didn’t see Supernatural.

As with much of The CW and modern television, this pilot struggles with show and tell. The episode opens with John returning from Vietnam before he is suddenly in a dark alley investigating an address recently delivered to him concerning his father’s whereabouts. John says he received this letter after he returned home, which was also after the beginning of the episode. The writers’ choice to skip the dramatic delivery of his dead or missing father’s final words before the messenger just vanishes into thin air is baffling. That cut scene would have greatly served the audience by allowing them to connect with John; it would also have helped visually justify his motivations and decisions. With it cut, pacing suddenly becomes an issue, jarring the audience from John returning home with no real purpose to him suddenly ready and equipped to discover his father’s secrets.

When John meets Mary, it needs to be a magical moment, as fate, destiny, and angels spent centuries of work ensuring their pairing. However, The Winchesters decides that they just lived in the same town and bumped into each other. This is incredibly underwhelming. Additionally, instead of connecting over something of substance, their romance starts with John dramatically looking at candy and saying that he hasn’t had any in two years. This cheesy and poorly delivered line sets off a love story that ends in the creation of the boys who save the world. If this is the truth behind John and Mary’s meeting, it was better left unexplored.

While Mary is the more trained fighter and an experienced hunter, John would not be useless in a fight. He was still trained by the Marines and fought in a war. Instead of properly depicting at least a modicum of hand-to-hand combat skill, the pilot decides to have him flail about ridiculously in his first demon fight, accidentally hitting Mary more than he does the demon. Of course, he should be out of his depth and outperformed by Mary, but he shouldn’t be acting so blatantly silly and stupid. This scene exemplifies one of the biggest issues with this pilot: John. This John is not the strong and stoic character that fans have come to know and love. Even before Mary’s death, which hardened him, he was still a confident and capable man with years of training.

This John is bumbling and overly emotional, not resembling either previous John actor in look or personality. Without the endearing and stalwart masculinity that previously defined him, John and Mary’s relationship seems incredibly one-sided, making John virtually useless in their partnership. He does end up killing the rougarou — whose design and mannerisms are canon-inaccurate — at the end of the episode. However, that fight is a one-swing kill requiring no skill whatsoever. He should not be useless in a fight, nor should he be such a pansy. Regarding Mary, the actress has superficial similarities with the original character, though the subpar acting also makes her uninteresting and entirely forgettable.

The pilot’s attempts to be melodramatic come across as nothing short of cringe. Carlos trying to be a hippie, gangster, sex fiend, and thespian all at once, and the over-the-top, canon-inaccurate demon voices exemplify this. The Winchesters feels as if it’s lost all the maturity and tension that made Supernatural so compelling. More cringe comes from the McGuffin monster trap box at the end of the episode. It merely needs to be touched on each side to be opened. This gimmicky plot device doesn’t even have dramatic sound effects when each corner is pressed. This device is incredibly underwhelming and adverse to the sometimes complicated magical entrapments and scenarios of Supernatural. Even the fight at the end of the episode is one-two-done, shortened in favor of more exaggerated conversations. The action isn’t even compelling.

So far, The Winchesters is a poor successor to Supernatural, with none of the heart or great performances of the original. The only good things about this episode come from the return of the original Henry Winchester actor in a voiceover at the end and the brief cameo of Dean back with his baby after two years. However, these two nostalgic additions are not enough to rescue it from extreme inadequacy and meandering boredom. It’s all empty and vapid, coming across as virtually meaningless. Taken on its own, The Winchesters is incredibly forgettable at best, but compared to its predecessor, it pales to the greatness Supernatural once offered. These characters may say, “Hunting things, saving people, the family business,” but they have not earned the right to say it. This episode simply does not live up to the Supernatural pilot.