Filed under: TV, Witchery | Tags: apocalyptic, Charmed, demons, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, TV, witches
You may remember that I owe a debt of gratitude to the show Charmed. When I last wrote about it, the new Charmed, the reboot, had not yet come out. I had no idea if I would like it or hate it or if it would make me miss the old one too much.
Turns out. I love it. Is it great TV? Nope. Just like the old Charmed, there’s a soapy quality that prevents it from being really great. It’s on the CW and it feels like the network sort of automatically layers everything with a teen soap opera varnish, much like the WB tended to do back in the day. But I love it. I don’t know if I love it in spite of the varnish or because of it but I love it.
Does the show take some totally nonsensical turns between and during the seasons? Yep. (Why do they suddenly live in Seattle instead of the mythical college town they were in? Why did they lose all their powers that they just got only to get new ones? New location? New powers?) I don’t care, though. I really don’t. I find the show incredibly comforting, even as the Charmed Ones face apocalyptic circumstances every week. There’s something about watching those three young women defeat evil over and over again that makes me feel less hopeless about the state of the world. If Macy, Mel and Maggie defeat an evil demon cult, then maybe we can defeat the forces of darkness out here.
Contrast that to my absolute anxiety while watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel where there has been nary an evil demon cult, not even once. The problems that Mrs. Maisel faces are real life ones, the cheery optimist getting a comeuppance type ones, and having had a few of those myself, it does not make me feel comforted to watch Midge get her metaphorical ass beat at a theatre. But the Charmed Ones kicking high stakes demon ass is very relaxing. There are a few jump scares every now and then but I can easily recover and rest easy at night knowing the only real drama in The Charmed Ones’ lives is their relationships and I have very little invested in whether Maggie gets back together with Parker or not. I’m pretty sure I felt similarly about the Leo/Piper relationship on the original Charmed (though I may have had some feelings about the Phoebe/Cole storyline). I care about the demon fighting mostly.
Sidebar – the first season was rather delightfully woke. An MRA guy got punched in the face in the first episode and I was HERE for that. They’ve stepped away from the overt feminism this season (is it because they’re in Seattle now?) and I miss it – but they’re still kicking ass, so, fine. The show is definitely not made for me. I’m the age of the guy who played the father on the show and stories about frat parties and such are of zero interest to me, nor were they of interest when I was their age, frankly.
In my search to figure out what happened between Seasons 1 and 2 that made them seem so different (answer: new showrunners) I discovered that there had been some controversy at the beginning among some of the original Charmed Ones actors. A couple of them were upset about the reboot and fans got a #StopCharmedReboot hashtag going – which could be a little bit racist, given that the new Charmed Ones are Latinx so #Yikes. But I suppose I understand why some of the original Charmed Ones might feel insulted and put out to pasture. Why can’t we have middle aged witches? I mean, seriously, why can’t we? I think they felt as though they were being replaced. But honestly – given that the different versions of Charmed don’t seem to operate in the same universe – they could easily co-exist and heck, I don’t see why we couldn’t have them both.
We can have the middle aged witches, who don’t spend nearly as much time at the P3 club as they used to and whose romantic drama just isn’t that dramatic anymore, and these new young witches as well.
Then maybe one day we could have a little crossover and instead of the witches getting their advice and support from a male authority whitelighter, they could consult with each other.
Or maybe we could have baby Charmed where really young witches are taught by the previous two generations of Charmed Ones. We’ll call it Charmed School. Did I just pitch a show? Checks payable to me, please. It’ll be so relaxing to watch when those child Charmed ones start kicking child demon asses.
Photo of the Charmed Ones by ColliderVideo – ‘Charmed’: Melonie Diaz, Sarah Jeffery and Madeleine Mantock on The CW Reboot via WikiCommons
This post was brought to you by my generous patrons on Patreon.
They also bring you the podcast version of the blog.
You can find the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Every podcast features a song at the end. Some of those songs are on Spotify, my website, ReverbNation, Deezer and iTunes
*
Want to help me come up with more Charmed spin-offs?
Become my patron on Patreon.
Click HERE to Check out my Patreon Page
*
If you liked the blog and would like to give a dollar (or more!) put it in the PayPal digital hat. https://www.paypal.me/strugglingartist
Or buy me a coffee on Kofi – ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
Songs for the Struggling Artist 