It's happening. I have the shakes, I'm irritable, slightly nauseaous. My heart races whenever I see a black Impala driving down the road. My stomach clenches whenever a Kansas song comes on the radio. I am suffering from a severe case of Supernatural withdrawal and I can imagine that many others out there in fandom are suffering as well. What is the remedy? You can only rewatch episodes so many times. Bloopers, commentaries, and behind-the-scene featurettes grow stale with frequent viewing. What is a fan to do?

One remedy I found during Spring Break was to spread the Supernatural wealth. Showing the show to people who haven't seen it before. My sister took to it with great enthusiasm, and watching episodes with someone who hadn't seen them brought back a bit of the excitement I felt my first time through. Especially when the person exclaims aloud at least 3-4 times an episode. She finally got completely caught up on her last day of Spring Break, and now there is a new Supernatural fan ready to watch the new episode on the 24th.

So if you're experiencing Supernatural withdrawal, trying showing the show to a first-timer. It will help bring back some of the excitement of your first time through and it will help the show by bringing in new fans.

While much complaining had gone on during the writer's strike (and when I say much complaining, I mean by me) I have to point out a few good things that came out of it.

First, my grades. While I don't do nearly enough studying as it is, it would have been even worse had all the shows I watch had full 22 episode seasons. I counted up the number of shows I got into this season,( just into enough to watch every week, not obsessed with as in Supernatural) and the count made it to eight that aired new episodes this season. The number seemed unusually high and I couldn't figure out how I still managed to have enough time to do homework. Though when I realized that at any given time only 2 to 3 of the shows were airing a new episode in a given week due to the strike, it made sense. Like the new show Chuck that I got into this season. Although it sucked up a lot of time in the fall, (watching and rewatching, and reading about upcoming episodes), it hasn't had any new episodes since . . . January, I think, so that helped free up my Monday nights. So thanks to the writers, I managed to scrape a high enough GPA to get into the School of Journalism here at the University of Minnesota. Move over Chloe and Lois, here I come!

The second good thing about the writer's strike is that it kept the interest level up on my favorite shows because I didn't get to see them as much. You guys know the adage, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder", well in this case it's true. Each week of a new episode the excitement would carry me through the whole week until the night of the airing, and then the analysis of the episode would last about another week or so. But if there was a new episode week after week, I wouldn't get a chance to thoroughly savor the episode. So spacing them out made each one a little more special. Also, I feel that on full seasons a lot of shows tend to hit a dry spell around episode 16 or so. Where the excitement and mystery of the premiere is starting to grow stale, and it isn't quite time to begin building up to the finale. I think that was avoided this year because most shows stopped at 15 or at least thought they would stop at 15.

The third thing about the writer's strike is that it got the writers some appreciation. People tend to focus on the more visible players in a show such as the actors or creators but writers have a huge part in the production of our favorite shows and I'm glad that they got some of what they wanted. So kudos to the writers and welcome back!

What is it about television that is so compelling? Ever since the first set went into homes in the mid 1900's people have been fascinated by it. Is it the aesthetic appeal of the six inch figures and pristine backdrops we see? Is it an escape from our lives into the lives of our favorite characters? Who knows. Perhaps the reason is as follows:

TV is storytelling, and storytelling has been going on since the dawn of the spoken language. Humankind has a prehistoric nature to tell stories. Fables, legends, proverbs, fairy-tales, they all convey lessons on what it is to be human. Maybe that is what is so great about television, it is so. . .human.