Supernatural: Route 666

When Dean gets a call from his first love, Cassie Robinson (the episode's babe, Megalyn Echikunwoke, better known as Isabelle from The 4400) that her father has been killed after his car was run off the road by a vanishing truck, the brothers are off to Missouri.

Turns out that the 'phantom truck' is trying to work its way through the black population of the town and the Winchester's quickly deduce that - like the Flying Dutchmen - it is being driven by the cruel spirit of its deceased owner, the violent, racist scion of the family who owned most of the town in the 1960s.

Then the truck claims its next victim, the white mayor Harold Todd (Gary Hetherington), and the monster hunters realise his victims are more targeted and that the next victim is going to be Cassie.

Route 666 promises a lot but never really escapes its obvious roots in such films as Duel and Christine, despite the introduction of racial issues.

Cassie, a journalist on the local newspaper, dumped Dean when he told what he and his father did for a "living" because she thought he was either nuts or just making something up as a cover for wanting to break up with her.

Then when, years later, she begins to wonder if Dean was actually telling the truth - because of the strange nature of her father's death - she gives Dean a call and he comes a-runnin'.

While the episode allows Dean and Cassie the opportunity of some surprisingly raunchy make-up sex, their reignited passions never seem to be going anywhere and there is an inescapable air of 'blah' hanging over the story as a whole.

Cassie is a strong character and while she admits, as a realist, she can't see a future in their relationship, it would have been nice to have seen her again rather than neatly tying everything up in a single episode. Dean clearly still has strong feelings for the woman he dared share the "family secret" with and it's a pity this isn't ever explored further.