Supernatural was not a television program. It was an institution—a 15-season saga that did just enough to keep The CW on life support, created a passionately devoted fan base, and demonstrated a monster-hunting road trip could also provide heart and humor in abundance. Fans for years fantasized about watching its world grow. But where spin-offs were concerned, Supernatural’s history was less “legendary” and more “tragic comedy of errors.”
The First Strikeout: Bloodlines
Let’s get real—Bloodlines was a failure from the second it premiered. Hyped as a mob-drama-meets-monster show based in Chicago, it contained none of Supernatural’s DNA. Critics roasted it, fans spurned it, and even Sam and Dean’s cameo spot appearances couldn’t hide that the entire production felt like a soap opera with cringeworthy special effects. The story was awkward, the new characters forgettable, and the mythology so haphazard it contradicted its own rules. One reviewer labeled it flat-out “an epic fail.” Nobody cried when the network canceled it.
Along came the Real Deal: Wayward Sisters
Out of that failure, though, came something real. Rather than creating a spinoff in a boardroom, Wayward Sisters unfolded organically from the show itself—and from the fans. At her core was Sheriff Jody Mills, a woman who’d grown from occasional guest to honorary mother figure. Around her were the faces of old friends with substance: Sheriff Donna Hanscum, wisecracking hunter with a bright face; Alex Jones, former vampire bait; Claire Novak, hot-headed daughter of Castiel’s vessel host; Patience, a psychic born of her family’s curse; and Kaia, a dream-walker bound to the darker realms.
These women were not throw-ins. They had been a part of the Supernatural tapestry all along. Fans had seen them grow, fight, and endure. By the time Jody’s motley crew officially came together in the backdoor pilot, the fanbase had already begun the “Wayward Daughters” campaign, clamoring for their story.
And the episode delivered. It had grit, humor, and heart—the perfect balance of monster-hunting and emotional stakes. Jody’s now-iconic rallying cry, “Alright, girls, let’s go to work,” came like a promise. This was a world worth exploring, one in which found family and resilience were just as vital as salt rounds and angel blades.
Fans Were In. The CW Was Out.
The feedback was massive. The fans filled up social media, the conventions were abuzz, and the critics concurred that it was a spinoff with substance. Even showrunner Andrew Dabb acknowledged that the series would have reduced the things to the bare essentials: fewer apocalyptic wars, more monster-of-the-week and character-centric arcs—the kind of storytelling that had fans fall in love with Supernatural initially.
And then The CW murdered it. Network executive Mark Pedowitz conceded the cast was good and the fan enthusiasm irrefutable, but said the show wasn’t “where we wanted it to be” creatively. Rather, the network defaulted to Legacies, a spin-off of The Originals.
The response from the fandom was immediate and angry. Petitions went around, hashtags trended on social media, and campaigns attempted to persuade Netflix to renew it. Cast and writers alike took to expressing heartbreak. Dabb himself tweeted, “We love these characters… but there are some fights you can’t win.”
The One That Got Away
Years down the line, the sting hasn’t worn off. Wayward Sisters women continue to appear at conventions, fans continue to discuss what could have been, and creators continue to recognize the untapped potential. Dabb later confessed there were so many more stories to be told—particularly how this group of survivors would evolve into their type of hunters.
The tragedy of Wayward Sisters isn’t that it never aired. It’s that it was something so unusual: a fan-sourced spinoff with popular characters, natural storytelling, and a distinct voice for a show that tended to rely on Sam-and-Dean-only plots. It had the potential to be the future of the Supernatural universe.
In place of it, it became its biggest missed potential. Because to fans, Wayward Sisters wasn’t another series—it was the family business that ought to have been.