Unrealized Episodes

Unrealized episode ideas from Ben Edlund's whiteboard.

Plot ideas from early SPN via Eric Kripke.

Plot ideas from the early days of Supernatural.

This page compiles a list of various episode concepts that never were produced, based on a number of factors.

Episodes

Apocalypse World Episode

At the 2018 William S. Paley Television Festival panel, Andrew Dabb revealed that the concept for Apocalypse World in Season 13 began as an episode pitch by writers and executive producers Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming.

Brad: Well it was something we hadn't really seen the show do before, and the more we talked about -- about having an alternate version of this world -- I mean it itself became its own monster. And so that was really exciting to us, for them to put our characters into a completely different world with a -- no set of reality that was even remotely familiar to them and keep everybody off balance.

Eugenie: We were playing with the idea of having our hunters be the hunted and -- and as Brad said just turning the world upside down and all kinds of evil and good and and realities being morphed into something they -- we had never seen before. So that was just the genesis of it, which is the way a lot of our stories start, you know? Someone just comes in and says "what if" and then someone says, "well that's a crazy idea" and someone says, "no I think it's a really good idea", that it just turns into a season.

Boxing Episode

Writer Adam Glass had an idea for an episode involving the Winchesters and boxing.

Cat's POV Episode

One of the many strange pitches from former writer Ben Edlund revolved around an episode told entirely from the POV of a cat. This idea would be revised and used as 11.04 Baby, which took place entirely from the POV of the Impala.

“Fluff 'n Fold”

During a speaking event at DePaul University, former writer Robbie Thompson spoke of the "Fluff 'n Fold" episode as one he continuously pitched throughout Season 8.

“There’s one episode that Robbie has pitched repeatedly that everyone really really would like to see get made. He calls it the ‘fluff ‘n fold’ episode, which consists of the boys doing laundry and arguing about who has to watch the dryer. While they wait, they each have flashbacks about their time apart in Season 8 – Dean in Purgatory, with only five bullets in his gun, and we get to see how he used each of them. Meanwhile, Sam’s flashback shows him doing all those things that we were all sure he was doing, like frantically looking for Dean. As Robbie said, ‘everything that happened before he hit that f—king dog.’ Even though the brothers probably wouldn’t share their flashbacks, at least we would finally know!”

Jumanji-style Episode

Robert Singer revealed that in Season 11, a Jumanji-style episode wherein Sam and Dean would be stuck in some sort of game had made it to the scripting stage, but had to be scrapped.

“We just couldn’t make it work. I think that was the only script in 11 years that we ever abandoned. It was just too hard to do and we just couldn’t nail it.”

“The Midnight Train”

Andrew Dabb described the episode as follows:

“We’ve got an episode coming up after our midseason break, which we’re essentially titling ‘Stakes on a Train,‘” Dabb shares. “It’s our version of a train heist with vampires.”

The concept had to be scrapped due to filming constraints, and replaced with 13.11 Breakdown.

“Naked Supernatural”

Jensen and Jared revealed in an interview with Variety, that along with Richard Speight, Jr., the three had been workshopping an episode idea to pitch called "Naked Supernatural".

“It was like the ‘Naked Gun’ version of ‘Supernatural,'” Ackles clarifies. Everything that happened in the episode would have been ‘tongue-in-cheek.’ Everything is any kind of horrible joke we could possibly fathom — it was going to be that version of ‘Supernatural.'”

Due to being in the final season, the idea never went beyond the text chain among the three.

Nukekubi Episode

Former writer Eric Charmelo divulged on Twitter one of the episodes he and writing partner Nicole Snyder tried to get made for years revolved around the Japanese creature known as the nukekubi.

“Yes! For years @NicoleASnyder and I wanted to do an episode about a Nukekubi— A Japanese supernatural being whose head detaches and flies around at night, shrieking! Ha!”

A combination of logistics and creative prevented the episode from going beyond a simple idea.

“It was most logistical... but partially creative. Detachable. Floating. Heads.”

Original “Lebanon”

One of the early reported ideas for 14.13 Lebanon at Comic-Con 2018 was for it to be done from the perspective of the town's people of Lebanon, Kansas, and see their perceptions of Sam and Dean in the town. An element of this idea was retained with the teenager Eliot talking about Sam and Dean's mysterious nature, as well as the Winchester's interactions with the local bartender, Jackson, and the mailwoman, Martha.

Original “Route 666”

The original pitch for the episode was based on the idea of it being a 42 minute car chase. However, budget and the logistics of filming the episode forced the premise to be rethought. Writers Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming were brought in to write the episode as freelancers at the request of Eric Kripke after the original concept was scrapped during production and needing an emergency script finished in a week to replace it.

Superman Curse / Smallville Crossover

Writer/director and former production assistant Jackson Stewart mentioned in a 2016 interview that the show had an idea for a Smallville crossover, but were unable to figure out how to make the idea work:

“They had an episode where they really wanted to do a Superman curse that was about every actor who plays Superman ends up getting killed. So they find out that Tom Welling from Smallville is next and have to save him. I thought that was one of the funniest ideas that I’d heard.”

Wish Fish

The "wish fish" was an episode idea Ben Edlund had pitched for a few years on Supernatural, which involved a talking fish granting wishes.