The Boys of ‘Supernatural’: The Fan Favorites Answer Your Burning Questions

Despite Supernatural’s gunslinging ghouls, evil archangels and multiple apocalypses, laughter is never more than a few minutes away on its Vancouver set. While shooting in mid-September in the horror show’s Men of Letters bunker (the Winchesters’ home base), any cast member’s flubbed line sets off a torrent of quips and witty retorts.

It’s this natural chemistry, first between Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki as demon-hunting brothers Dean and Sam Winchester, then adding in Misha Collins (their angel ally Castiel), that’s helped make Supernatural the network’s longest-running series — 14 seasons so far! ­— and fueled an army of passionate viewers.

After an Ackles-led private tour of the cavernous set, TV Guide Magazine sat down with the trio to talk all things Supernatural, boosted by fan questions. The mood was celebratory and, naturally, punctuated with good-natured teasing, particularly of Collins, who hadn’t filmed since August 13.

“Cas has been written out,” Padalecki states, straight-faced. With a resigned smile, Collins says, “I really missed you guys.” A grinning Ackles responds, “I bet.”

Jared and Jensen, what do you remember about your auditions?

Jared Padalecki: Everybody was reading for Sam.

Jensen Ackles: He was the pivotal character then. After I did two scenes, [executive producers] David Nutter and Eric Kripke were having a sidebar, and I interjected, “Can I just read the Dean character and see how that plays?” And they turned to me and said, “That’s exactly what we were saying. You’re Dean, not Sam.”

Padalecki: We were already network-approved by The WB: I was on Gilmore Girls and Jensen was on Smallville, but the rumor goes that when I was floated for Sam, Kripke said, “I don’t know, I’m looking for someone bookish, like [David] Duchovny.” My manager was like, “Jared was a National Merit Scholar. He can pull it off.” I always tease Kripke for thinking I was too dumb to play Sam.

Ackles: That’s why he looked at me and said, “He’s not a Sam.” [Laughter]

Photo by Maarten de Boer

Photo by Maarten de Boer

Also in this issue:

• Halloween Preview: Young Sheldon trick-or-treats; The Simpsons invite Cthulhu to their seasonal episode; black-ish hosts a haunted house; and all the movie, marathons and specials needed for a spine-chilling time.
• My Dinner With Hervé: Game of Thrones‘ Peter Dinklage plays the famed Fantasy Island actor.
• Manifest: Is it the new Lost? We’re on the hunt for clues in NBC’s new survivor drama.
• Plus: Making a Murderer take two; the definitive British mystery list on Amazon Prime Video; comparing Dancing With the Stars to pint-sized Juniors; picking the brain of the doc who inspired New Amsterdam; Gordon Ramsay takes us inside Hell’s Kitchen; Crickey! It’s the Irwins premieres, and the best of movies, streaming, sports and more.

‘NCIS: New Orleans’: Scott Bakula Previews All the Season 5 Surprises

You could say that Scott Bakula is a superstitious guy. Not black-cat-and-broken-mirrors superstitious, but definitely a believer in jinxes. So when the cast and crew of NCIS: New Orleans started filming the series’ 100th episode in early September, he refused any sort of group celebration until production was complete.

After all, he had yet to reach that number in a career crowded with favorites like the 1989–93 time-travel drama Quantum Leap (97 episodes) and 2001–05 Starfleet saga Star Trek: Enterprise (98 episodes). Plus, Tropical Storm Gordon was on the radar and rapidly approaching.

“It was blowing up through the Gulf,” he recalls a few days later while sitting at a table in a deserted New Orleans hotel banquet hall. “I kept saying, ‘This is going to destroy the 100th episode, and we’re going to have to relocate.’ We shouldn’t have been talking about it!”

It never even drizzled. Call it a good omen…or a sure sign that Mother Nature is a fan of the vibrant CBS drama. In its fifth season, NCIS: New Orleans — in which Bakula’s Dwayne “King” Pride and his dogged team solve military-based crimes in and around the Crescent City — has managed to stand out from the pack of procedurals because it focuses just as much on the city’s rich history and culture as it does on the investigations. (Would Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs sing and tickle the ivories in his own bar on the D.C.-set NCIS? Don’t think so.)

Also in this issue:

• News: Will Netflix Save Your Favorite Show? Designated Survivor, Lucifer… what will be next?
• Lisa Edelstein: From Seinfeld to The Good Doctor and The Kominsky Method: the actress’s long career, in her own words.
• Gold Rush: The stakes are raised on Discovery’s highest-rated series.
• Plus: David Schwimmer joins Will & Grace, Criminal Minds celebrates 300 episodes, The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Who‘s game-changer and the best of movies, streaming, sports and more.

Returning Favorites: ‘Law & Order: SVU’ 20th Season Exclusive

Critics weren’t sure what to make of Dick Wolf’s Law & Order spinoff with a sex-crimes slant when it arrived in 1999. For every “crackling-sharp” and “dead-on,” there was a “formulaic” or “uneasy-making.” But Mariska Hargitay — who has played intrepid NYC cop Olivia Benson, now the lieutenant, since Day 1 — and her Special Victims Unit costars quickly won over fans, and along the way to amassing 434 episodes, she earned eight Emmy nods, winning one.

A producer and occasional director, Hargitay has been greatly affected by SVU’s stories of sexual assault and domestic violence, launching the Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 to help empower survivors. (Her documentary about the backlog of untested DNA rape kits, I Am Evidence, can be seen on HBO Go and HBO Now.)

Ahead of the two-hour episode that opens the milestone 20th season (“Olivia is going to deal with some new things, maybe her own physical limitations,” Hargitay teases), she solves 20 more mysteries about her beloved drama.

In this issue:

• Monday: Freddie Highmore on The Good Doctor, 9-1-1 blazes back into action; Bull gets healthy.
• Tuesday: Intel on This Is Us‘s Big Three; Lethal Weapon welcomes a new face; surviving NCIS‘s cliffhanger; black-ish‘s sunny turn; the Black Lightning gives their best guess to: ‘What’s in the briefcase?’
• Wednesday: SEAL Team faces a loss; one big night of Chicago dramas.
• Thursday: Karen’s next move on Will & Grace; The Good Place‘s reset; a Big Bang Theory farewell.
• Friday: A Blue Bloods wedding looms; Hawaii Five-0 hits 200 episodes; Tim Allen talks his return to Last Man Standing.
• Sunday: Madam Secretary gets presidential; PBS’s Poldark; The Walking Dead‘s new world order; inside Outlander‘s colonial wardrobe.
• Plus: A calendar chock-full of returning series, 2018 Emmy ballot, Anthony Hopkins portrays King Lear and the best of movies, streaming, sports and more.

Fall Preview 2018: Your Complete Guide to Every New Show

No medium has changed more in recent years than television. How we watch: streaming, downloads, the almighty binge. Where we watch: Hello, bottomless pool of Netflix! Even when we watch, with rarely a break between so-called seasons in a nonstop and overwhelming flow of programming.

But as we assess, in our yearly tradition, a heaping new lineup of fall TV, what hasn’t changed is why we watch: The shows that matter are the ones that make us care. Echoing the breakout series from the past two years — NBC’s This Is Us and ABC’s The Good Doctor — the most promising provide strong emotional hooks, in a variety of genres, to help cut through TV’s clutter.

Even comedies can give you a lump in the throat. You’ll have to wait until November for my favorite, Netflix’s The Kominsky Method, but it’s worth it. This marvelously melancholy meditation on aging, from The Big Bang Theory’s Chuck Lorre (a personal best), stars Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin in top form as an acting teacher and legendary Hollywood agent who’ve both seen better days. As these endearing curmudgeons endure loss and life’s humiliating aches and pains, you may not know whether to laugh or cry. (Both responses are acceptable.)

Same goes for Amazon Prime Video’s entrancing romantic comedy Forever, starring Saturday Night Live veterans Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen in a uniquely affecting exploration of love over the very long haul. To say more would give too much away, but I devoured the entire season in a state of dazed bliss. I wish I were as attached to Jim Carrey’s creepily depressed kiddie host from Showtime’s Kidding or Jennifer Garner’s uptight wife in HBO’s off-putting Camping. They and their shows are more unpleasant than amusing.

High-concept dramas with sci-fi leanings also aim for the emotional jugular. NBC’s intriguing Manifest is built around one of those cosmic mysteries you worry will never pay off — what happened to a flight that vanished for five and a half years before landing? — but it’s just as compellingly invested in the impact on the lives forever changed by this weird phenom. Even better is Hulu’s The First, starring an excellent Sean Penn. Grounded in realism, the eight-parter tells of preparations for a manned mission to Mars that’s clouded by tragedy and complicated by all-too-human conflict.

In this issue:

• Reboots and More: Magnum P.I. behind the scenes; Murphy Brown‘s leading lady.
• Fish Out of Water: Nathan Fillion briefs us on The Rookie; why you should watch Rel.
• Workplace Dramas: Dick Wolf’s FBI; Tony Danza and Josh Groban talk The Good Cop.
• Ensembles: Meet the pals from A Million Little Things; All American‘s football players; The Cool Kids‘ retirees; and comedy Single Parents.
• Bad Romance: Thriller The Little Drummer Girl; Bravo’s Dirty John.
• Family Fun: Roseanne‘s legacy continues with The Conners; NBC’s I Feel Bad.
• Strange and Unexplained: Analyzing three scary streamers.
• Plus: The year in review, a primetime network schedule and new series calendar, NFL preview, and the best of movies, streaming, sports and more.