If you miss Supernatural and Castle, Netflix has the show that does both at once

Plenty of us are still annoyed about Supernatural being cut off after fifteen years on television. If you ask me, it wasn’t out of steam; Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki (that’s Dean and Sam to you and me) could have carried on hunting demons and saving the world for another decade—awkward Heaven and Hell subplots aside. Then you had Castle, a show axed in its prime after just eight seasons, despite hints some people involved were banking on a ninth. Could they have kept going if Netflix or some rival streamer swooped in? We’ll never know. What’s clear is that every so often, a series gets a second chance—and sometimes that’s enough to make a show a legend. Which brings me to Lucifer.

‘Lucifer’ ran for six series, with its finale airing in 2021 and a grand total of 93 episodes under its belt.

Lucifer: The Rebellious Procedural That Wouldn’t Die

If you’ve not dipped into Lucifer yet, here’s the gist: it borrows from the DC/Vertigo comics (yes, Neil Gaiman’s universe), following Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis), a fallen archangel who abdicates his post in Hell, opens a swanky nightclub in Los Angeles, and inexplicably becomes a consultant for the LAPD. As you do.

Lucifer’s policing partner is detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German), and together they clear up all sorts of supernatural crime. If that setup rings a bell, it’s because there’s a rich tradition of 'odd-couple' investigative duos in telly, from The X-Files’ Mulder and Scully to, yes, Castle and Supernatural’s brotherly duo.

Where Supernatural has Sam and Dean facing down monsters (literally), and Castle throws a crime writer and a cop together over murder mysteries, Lucifer borrows from both. It’s crime-solving with a big dollop of the bizarre, plus the comedy and tension that comes when you pair a celestial being with a jaded human detective.

From Bin to Binge: Lucifer’s Resurrection

Unlike Castle and Supernatural, Lucifer actually cashed in on the 'cancelled before its time' cliché. After limping through its early run on Fox (viewers dropped from a decent 7.1 million in its first year to about 4.1 million by the third), Fox unceremoniously yanked it in 2018. Ratings were down, reviews were middling, and it wasn’t what you’d call cheap to produce.

Then the internet did what it does best: shouted and tweeted #SaveLucifer until someone relented. Netflix snapped up the rights just a month later and greenlit seasons four through six. With that change of management, the show actually got sharper—Rotten Tomatoes scores leapt from a meagre 49% in season one to a full 100% for both seasons four and six, with season five landing a respectable 81%.

If only Castle or Supernatural had benefitted from that sort of campaign, who knows how long they’d have stuck around? Lucifer’s Netflix run put it among the service’s biggest draws, week in and week out, and let’s not pretend that’s nothing—especially five years after its swansong.

• Lucifer ran for six seasons: three on Fox, three on Netflix
• The show finished in 2021, with 93 episodes in total
• Tom Ellis stars as Lucifer Morningstar, with Lauren German as detective Chloe Decker
• Season one RT score: 49%; seasons four and six: 100% each
• Ratings tanked on Fox but soared on Netflix after the resurrection campaign

Castle never landed that backing, bowing out after season eight. Supernatural, despite still drawing more than a million viewers for its final year, made it to fifteen and quietly bowed out as America’s longest-running fantasy drama. But Lucifer? Thanks to that Netflix twist, it remains a gloriously unserious, bingeable procedural, packed with irreverent charm, leading chemistry, and (let’s be honest) some of the silliest cosmic soap opera moments you’ll see this side of reanimated Winchester brothers.