Supernatural

Just like future dystopias, horror stories are almost always tales of their times. Andrew Pyper’s forthcoming novel ‘The Residence,’ explores the presence of a demon within the White House walls.

Supernatural does a lot of gimmick episodes, and last night’s episode was done as a parody of various types of TV shows: Grey’s Anatomy-type soap (complete with the overuse of sappy music), CSI-type procedural, multi-camera sitcom. Easy targets all, but it’s still fun. And the easiest target of all — and the most fun part — was the full-scale sitcom introduction, complete with situation-specific yet generic theme song, one character laughing at the wacky things the other one does, and of course, bicycles. The zoom-in on Sam after he sees the ghost is a nice touch; those ’70s and ’80s filmed shows used the zoom lens a lot.