What Would a ‘Supernatural’ Revival Look Like? Boss Details Ideas and Chances

Supernatural Afterlife: 20th Anniversary Special

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For 15 seasons, Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) saved people, hunted things (the family business) and stopped the world from ending more than once. Supernatural ended its run on The CW (after starting on The WB) in 2020. But what if it had continued? Had there been any plans for a 16th season? TV Insider recently asked Andrew Dabb, who served as showrunner for Seasons 12 through 15, just that.

While Warner Bros. and The CW both wanted to continue the show past Season 15, Padalecki and Ackles both wanted to do other things. “Totally within their rights, they’ve done great stuff,” Dabb said. Therefore, “Season 16, in terms of a plan, no, long story short, and I say that only because Jared and Jensen had kind of made it very well known that 15 was the last, we planned for that.”

And so the series ended with both brothers dead — Dean on a hunt, Sam when he was older and after he’d had a family of his own — and reunited in heaven.

However, he didn’t rule out the show returning in some way.  “Look, my feeling is, as much as we tried to end it with some degree of closure, I mean, we’re looking at like, X-Files came back, Buffy‘s coming back, you know what I mean? Supernatural 10, 15 years from now, some huge fan that grew up on it will be running Warner Bros, and they might decide to bring it back, and it’s very easy to do it,” he noted.

In fact, he knows exactly how that can happen: “Sam and Dean wake up and Jack [Alexander Calvert] is there, and somebody beat him up, and he’s like, ‘Look, guys, I need your help.’ And then you’re off to the races.”

He did call that “just a set-up. It’s like, look, God got beat up, who beat up God, Sam and Dean figure it out. But where it goes from there, I have no idea. And by the way, that may be a horrible opening. That’s the other thing: Sometimes ideas are meant to be just ideas.”

Dabb also pointed out that the episodes are about to go off Netflix with the end of that deal and they’ll “probably” end up streaming on HBO Max. (Other CW shows are available on there.) “There’s a version where HBO Max goes to Jared and Jensen, ‘Come back, do six episodes,'” he said but quickly added, “I don’t think the landscape right now supports that largely because every streamer’s making cutbacks. And genre procedural stuff is not what buyers seem to want unfortunately.”

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He does hope that the show returns “in some way, shape, or form. I think it would be fantastic. … I would hope that at some point we’ll either get Jared and Jensen back or get some more stories in this world because I do think the world is really interesting. That being said, I think we live in a time right now where that’s difficult, but I’m going to keep my fingers crossed.”

He also made sure to praise the one-season spinoff we did get (after two previous attempts didn’t come to fruition): “I also have to give credit, by the way, to Robbie Thompson and the guys who did The Winchesters, because I thought that show came together really well, and I think it was just a victim of circumstance and that we don’t have more of it.”

Dabb told us that while he loves Supernatural, calling it “my favorite job ever” and likely “the favorite job I ever have in my career,” he did say, “I honestly don’t know if I or anyone else involved in this first incarnation of the show is the best person to revive it. I think probably the best person to revive it is somebody who, during the finale, was on Tumblr live blogging their reaction. I think you need someone to come into it with a little bit of a different point of view, a little bit of a fresh take on it, a way that kind of explores it, both as a fan but also can kind of take it forward in a way, in a new and interesting direction. And if they wanted to bring a few of us old timers along for the ride, that would be fantastic.”

That being said, what he would want to see in a revival is “the guys back together and working cases of the week. Because as much as I love the myth and I love writing the myth and everything else, the core of that show is Sam and Dean rescuing someone by the end of 42 minutes. Nobody’s really doing that in episode in shows right now, but that’s what I would like to see personally. But in terms of where they go, what they do, I think it’s wide open.”

That would bring a revival back to the Winchester motto. “That’s what the show’s always been about, and that’s what the show, should it come back, should continue to be about,” according to Dabb.

Would you watch a revival of Supernatural? If so, what would you want to see? Let us know in the comments section below.

For a deep-dive into 20 years of Supernatural, from behind-the-scenes scoop to exclusive cast interviews, photos, and fan stories, pick up a copy of TV Guide Magazine’s Supernatural Afterlife: 20th Anniversary Special issue, available on newsstands July 25 and for order online at Supernatural.TVGM2025.com.