Fifteen years of monster hunting are coming to an end, and my fangirl heart is broken. The search is on for a new show to take me into the new decade!

A legacy of saving people and hunting things

I love Sam and Dean. A lot. The Winchesters introduced me to a world where your family legacy could be saving people and hunting things instead of like… everybody becoming a lawyer. It’s a frightening, funny and a beautiful ride which got wackier as it went but always stuck to the central theme: the importance of family. Or two brothers killing a lot of supernatural creatures. Whatever you’re into.

Despite initially being scared witless (don’t judge me, I was a teenager), I came back to Supernatural years later because I really wanted to know if they’d ever found their dad. Those who watched the show know how long it took to get that answer – and those of you who’ve yet to pick the show up… well, good luck.

In my absence Supernatural had already aired seven seasons and I binged them all in a space of a few weeks.

I was hooked. Every day I sat down and watched the rising drama as Sam and Dean Winchester fought monsters, discovered God and ultimately thwarted the apocalypse in season 5. Then the show kept going and it wasn’t necessarily great, but I kept watching because there were still monsters to slay, people to save and witticisms to enjoy. There were even a couple more apocalypses to thwart.

SuperWhoLock – the fandom to rule them all

In its 15th and final season, Supernatural has shaped not only one of the most dedicated fandoms in existence, but became one part of a fandom trifecta known as SuperWhoLock – an unholy alliance of shows to great, so addictive, that their fans couldn’t help but come together for world domination.

Supernatural, Doctor Who and Sherlock, on the surface, have very little in common. Sure, Sherlock and Doctor Who shared showrunners – and that was its own bag of worms. Supernatural and Doctor Who both have supernatural focuses, and all three shows shared some actors (hi, Crowley). But there’s nothing thematically holding SuperWhoLock together – just a bunch of people who all seem to like the same stuff. It’s really wholesome if you can avoid its most toxic aspects.

What comes next?

With Supernatural ending, and Sherlock unlikely to ever return to our screens in its previous glory, only Doctor Who keeps chugging to sustain our rabid appetites. While love is forever, life moves on – and so it is that I’ve been trying different shows on for size. On-demand streaming has made finding a new show to glom my fangirl heart on to easier than ever – but finding something as compelling as Supernatural is hard.

Wynona Earp almost had me, but my interest fizzled out fast for a variety of reasons. Sleepy Hollow was winning, I was watching it religiously – then they killed off the main actress and thought we would keep watching? Haha – that’s not how anything works. Into The Badlands fell victim to poor foresight and it still hurts almost as much as Sleepy Hollow’s demise.

So the search continues, and I’ll be posting about some of the shows which have caught my attention in recent years, and which give me hope for a post-Winchester world.