The sixth season of Supernatural, an American dark fantasy television series created by Eric Kripke, premiered September 24, 2010, and concluded May 20, 2011, airing 22 episodes. This is the first season to have Sera Gamble as showrunner after the full-time departure of Kripke. The sixth season had an average viewership of 2.27 million U.S. viewers. The season begins a year after the happenings of the previous season finale with Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) living a happy and normal life. Mysteriously, Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) is freed from Lucifer's cage in Hell and teams up with Dean, who leaves his new life behind and becomes a hunter again. In the United States the season aired on Fridays at 9:00 pm (ET) on The CW television network. Special guest stars in this season included Brian Doyle-Murray and Robert Englund. Cast Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester Misha Collins as Castiel Special guest stars Robert Englund as Dr. Robert Brian Doyle-Murray as Robert Singer Guest stars Episodes The number in the first column represents the episode's number overall, whereas the number in the second column indicates the episode's number within this particular season (6). "U.S. viewers in millions" refers to how many Americans who watched the episode live or on the day of broadcast. Production The show's creator Eric Kripke originally planned for the show to last only five seasons, but due to increased ratings from the fourth and fifth seasons, the CW network renewed the series for a sixth season. Kripke did not return as showrunner; however, he remained a hands-on executive producer, leaving long-time series writer Sera Gamble to take over the day-to-day production of the show. Filming for the season began with the series star Jensen Ackles-directed fourth episode, "Weekend at Bobby's", to give the actor enough time for pre-production. Kripke also wrote the season finale. Gamble said the sixth season of the show would focus on the brothers' relationship. The season steered towards the format of the early seasons with "lots of meat-and-potatoes closed-ended episodes, and... a season-long story arc to weave in". According to a press release by the CW, Heaven and Hell fell into "complete disarray", forcing Sam and Dean to reunite to "beat back the rising tide of creatures and demon-spawn" that "roam across a lawless and chaotic landscape". The season jumped ahead a year to "get some distance between