"Yeah, well, see, we have souls so we're gonna try." - Dean Winchester

Smart Pop ups the popular culture anti on hit television franchise Supernatural with a collection of 22 essays of the completely unauthorized kind. The advantage here of course is you don't get the Producers of the show or the network screening it being able to dictate what goes into the book, people get to say what they want. The disadvantage is online fanzine supernatural.tv are running the show from an editorial point of view so criticism is at best mild, though to be honest I don't think there's too much not to like about Supernatural given it's format and medium. Let's go shotgun and spread some rock salt on this book.

For anyone who lives in say outer Mongolia with no access to television, or DVD, or torrents download if we have to be complete twats about things, Supernatural is a current television phenomena heading into it's seventh season as I write this. To put it into context, that would match Buffy's run down the Hellmouth way, outstrip Dexter's tally, and be a couple of seasons less than The X-Files managed to invade our homes for. Any show that can run seven seasons without showing signs of flagging is a formidable beast in my book of counted sorrows. So the show follows two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, as they hunt things that go bump in the night, and all manner of supernatural nastiness. Currently we're toiling away on an episode guide, way behind the 8 ball there, with pretty much the entire team being dedicated fans of all things Winchester. Well okay we aren't hitting conventions or buying tees, but by heck we watch the shows. As such In The Hunt pretty much became required reading as the team sort to make sense of a phenomena that is threatening to engulf our way of life.

In The Hunt was written as season three of Supernatural was unfolding and hence a number of the essays aren't relevant to folk with in-depth knowledge from later seasons. Always a slight problem if you hold forth with your opinions, and then those opinions prove to be incorrect as things develop. Clearly a few Writers didn't note the hints being thrown in from as early as season one about the possibility of Angels and the heavenly host. Yo think about it, evil is defined by good, it's a yin and yang thing, Dean's disbelief in the possibility of Heaven was clearly a foretaste of direction in later seasons. Guess the rule of thumb here is that we don't always know as much as we think we do, a good writing team will throw the old curve ball down just when you are getting comfortable, there's some twists on certain characters by episode six that will have you rethinking.

The other criticism, using the more general meaning of the word, I would lay at the feet of In The Hunt is a rather ponderous attempt at a feminist viewpoint based on of all things Buffy and the Supernatural character Jo. Sorry Buffy worked for what it was, a sort of tween horror show that was light on the scares but great on the scripting. The central character was female and a former airhead cheerleader, everyone getting the juxtaposition of Buffy Summers as the kick arse vampire slayer? Jo Harvelle on the other hand is an incidental recurring character who looks to have been devised as a love interest for Dean Winchester, the character isn't part of any Winchester Scooby gang regardless of what some Writers believe. In simple terms Supernatural works as an examination of the relationship between two Brothers who just so happen to be fighting evil. If you want to read that as some sort of misogynist text then knock yourself out, there is such a thing as reverse sexism, the female fans of Supernatural, (my wife included), aren't there for the political and social messages, Dean and Sam work just fine for them. While on the subject, hey ho, why isn't space in the book given to some of the other recurrent female characters, who doesn't love them some Meg! Ironically the fem-nazis focus on Jo, who lets face facts here, is mighty fine to look at, but completely ignore her mother! Talk about twisting the facts to fit a preordained agenda, move on over Carol J. Clover. In short there are a lot more targets for feminist Writers to take aim at, Twilight immediatly comes to mind, than a show that simply seeks to entertain. Twisting facts to fit theories really is tiresome and is a result of lazy analysis, which U.S popular culture Academics seem to thrive on.

What In The Hunt does get right however is examining the actual text of Supernatural when shying away from the false gods of agenda. We get essays on both Sam and Dean, as expected, their relationship, which is key to an understanding of what makes Supernatural tick, and exactly what makes them heroes. Sam and Dean are modern day warriors who fight evil, what role does heroism play in their admittedly distorted upbringing as hunters? In The Hunt locks and loads on the brothers to good effect, I certainly got some food for thought out of this aspect of the book.

Also coming under the microscope to good effect is the character of John Winchester, jury still out on his parenthood skills? - and his relationship to both Sam and Dean, which goes a long way to explaining the Brothers' differing motivations and sense of loss. Naturally the Impala, a central character in herself, also gets examined. Why pick that car, why is the car important? And of course there is a whole examination of evil and the various entities Supernatural throws our way, including the Trickster amongst other recurring creatures.

Generally the essays are well written and informative, though a couple did tend to get bogged down in self-important "angels on the head of a pin" stuff. Hey we're all here for some insights into a hit television show, not the equivalent of a University thesis. It actually takes some skill to make Supernatural boring, unfortunately a couple of Writers achieved that. Actually we've been accused of that in the past as well!

Overall I enjoyed the book, more space could have been spent on the demonic plot arc running through the first two seasons, the "yellow eyed" demon, and got more out of the text than I had to invest. Any book that makes you think beyond the episode plots is worth a look in my ill-informed opinion. If you are a fan of Supernatural or want to know why the show is a phenomena then In The Hunt comes highly recommended. Some good insights going down, and some stuff you can happy skip without missing too much.

In The Hunt is available from the good folk at amazon.com and of course direct from Smart Pop either as a trade paperback or an ebook.