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At the same time, she’s haunted by the ghost of Lucy Sable, a young woman who fell from a seaside cliff 20 years before the start of the series, and who wants the famous girl detective to solve the mystery of her death. The show swiftly but methodically introduces fans to the idea of the supernatural being responsible for the strange goings-on around its setting of Horseshoe Bay, Maine, employing well-timed jump-scares in a serialized storyline that finds Nancy investigating the murder of a wealthy socialite. In the span of three seasons, Nancy Drew has taken the hallmarks of Supernatural and made them its own, beginning with an ability to mix unique mysteries of the week with compelling mythology tied to its heroine.
#NANCY DREW TV SHOW ORIGINAL SERIES#
But it turns out that by infusing the drama series with the right amount of supernatural hijinks and a splash of horror, Nancy Drew has carried on the legacy of the network’s longest-running property and amassed a small but loyal audience in the process.
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The many books ghostwritten under the Carolyn Keene pseudonym are well-known and come with enough associated nostalgia that the show arguably does not need a hook or gimmick to draw attention to it. After all, the character of Nancy Drew is a cultural icon. These changes might have been what kept curious viewers who might have otherwise watched the show from engaging early on-I know it kept me from tuning in initially. The fact that Nancy-who is played by Kennedy McMann in the show-is also on the outs with her father Carson (Scott Wolf) at the start of the series had a similar displeasing effect. When The CW announced in 2018 that it was adapting the popular book series about a young female sleuth and giving it a supernatural bent, it felt a bit like a slap in the face to fans of the novels that many grew up reading. However, the show’s legacy does live on at the young-skewing network, albeit in a show that no one saw coming: Nancy Drew. For years, The CW tried to replicate the magic that kept the series alive, developing backdoor pilots for two spinoffs that would ultimately never make it to series. That Supernatural managed to beat the odds time and again and last 15 seasons is a credit to everyone involved, from stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki (who carried the series on their backs), to the show’s dedicated fandom and its writing staff, which continued to tap into wells of creativity until late into the show’s run.
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Few shows in today’s crowded television landscape have the narrative inertia, ambition, and imagination to average 22 episodes per season for five seasons, let alone reach double-digits while doing it.
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