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Supernatural will end with its 15th season

Supernatural will end with its 15th season

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End of an era

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Image: CW

The CW’s supernatural series Supernatural will come to an end with its 15th season. The series follows brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester as they follow their father’s footsteps in the “family business” — hunting down supernatural monsters. Since it premiered in 2005, the series has has garnered a massive fan following.

The CW renewed the series for its 15th season in January. In a video message on Twitter, Padalecki, Ackles, and co-star Misha Collins (who plays the angel Castiel) announced that the series would come to an end with its forthcoming season, and thanked the fans who have watched over the years. “We wanted you to hear from us that although we’re excited about next year,” Padalecki said, “it will be the finale.”

Creator Eric Kripke originally envisioned the series would run for five seasons, only to see it last three times as long, building on the world and the characters for years. Supernatural isn’t the only long-running CW series to come to an end this year — earlier this month, the network revealed that Arrow will end after its eighth season this year. That show, based off of the DC superhero comic Green Arrow, launched a robust franchise for the network, spinning off shows such as The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow, along with a forthcoming Batwoman series.

Unlike Arrow, however, the CW has never been able to turn Supernatural into a longer, ongoing franchise. Over the years, the network has introduced several new characters in an attempt to create backdoor pilots for potential spinoff shows, such as Ghostfacers (about two characters who hunt for ghosts), Supernatural: Bloodlines (a series set in Chicago), Wayward Sisters (a female-driven supernatural series), and a western series about Samuel Colt, a fantastical version of the real-world gunmaker. None of those attempts were picked up for a series.

The show began in 2005 as a monster-of-the-week franchise, following the brothers as they work to avenge the death of their mother decades earlier — by hunting monsters. Over the following seasons, the two travel around the United States in a 1967 Chevy Impala, hunting down supernatural creatures, and finding themselves in the midst of a greater war between good and evil. Over the show’s long run, it’s attracted a devoted online fanbase, which the series has occasionally directly referenced and nodded to in various episodes.