(no subject)

[babydraco]

Did this need to be done? IDK. Talks of a reboot started in 2012, when Charmed hadn't been off the air all that long. But the fact is, times had already changed. Times changed *fast*. The tv landscape and what's expected of shows which cater to Charmed's demographics is very very different.

Like a lot of contemporary shows, this version is more...overtly political. They don't do subtle metaphors or refrain from topical discussions. Dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing but I guess I do kind of miss showing and not telling sometimes. Because it isn't just politics they do that with, characters will just blurt out their feelings and analyse them instead of leaving it to the audience to use critical thinking skills?

The awesome themesong is gone, but then, it's been removed from the Netflix reruns of the original show too, which is a pity.

The new version takes place in a college town in suburban Michigan (at least in the first season) instead of San Fransisco. It means we miss out on all the cool establishing shots of the city, but *shrug*. They probably wouldn't be able to afford San Fran these days. Case in point, the middle class Tanners on Full House now own a like five million dollar home.

But the Vera sisters do get a cool old house that is reminiscent of Halliwell "manor". So that's fun, they even get to keep the house when they move cities in Season 2. They still get the Book of Shadows and the attic spell room.

Mom's still dead, Dad's still an unreliable deadbeat and they still cheated on each other. But this time they're university professors.

The illegitimate sister shows up in the pilot instead of three seasons later. She has a very different personality from Paige and a PhD in genetics instead of a job as a social worker.

They have a Whitelighter, who mostly works the same way except he's a British nerd instead of an American handy man who used to be a war medic. Yes, he has a romance with one of the sisters. But the origin story of Whitelighters is a bit different and kind of upsetting.

There is initially a lot more of a power struggle between the Whitelighter (Harry) and his charges at first. They don't trust him, because he arrives in their life in the wrong way. Leo inserted himself into the Halliwell's lives as a handyman, Harry as a college professor which puts him at odds with Mel, who is just starting her new job there. The fact that he's white and they're not means he probably shouldn't have tried to start off by putting himself in authority over them, it instantly rankled. Thankfully they all got over it.


The new version does have way more women involved behind the scenes. More female writers, more female producers, they even included Constance M Berg (the original showrunner before it was given to Brad Kern). Women can tell when something's been written and filmed by other women or people who regard women as autonomous, intelligent human beings in their own right. We can TELL.

The weird male gazey aspect of the original which crept in when Kern took over is absent here. You know, it turns out he was a sex offender so in hindsight it makes sense that such a feminist show also seemed to weirdly hate its female characters. Anyway, the new characters dress normal and are shot like normal people and aren't subject to the appropriative fetishes of some creepy middle aged man.


But then, the original actresses were a bit miffed that The CW was rebooting the show with younger actors. They thought it undercut the attempted feminist message. I...don't know. Maybe?

One of the most sacred parts of witchcraft is the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. It is a little off putting that the whole "women approaching Crone" stage didn't appeal to the CW (well, in Real Life they'd still be Mothers but in Hollywood they're practically Crones in their 40s and 50s). Furthermore, while the original Charmed Ones at least had their grandmother's spirit to consult, these new characters have no relationships with older women at all. In fact, any recurring character who is or appears to be, over the age of 35, except their dad, seems to be missing.

The only thing that justifies it is that the reboot is really winning in the racial diversity category. Two Latina and one Afro Latina leads, black and Asian love interests, and just generally more of a commitment to including color blind casting of smaller recurring roles and guest spots. The sisters will sometimes use Spanish in their spells instead of English or Latin and one character in the first season was unphased by the revelation that the sisters do magic, because so does his grandma from Haiti.

They're not doing bad with the sexual diversity either, one of the lead characters is gay.

They would have had a more difficult time doing that if they'd brought back the original cast as the leads.

Because, you have to admit, the OG show was...not good at that side of things. The Halliwell sisters lived in a San Fransisco that was strangely white and straight. Never more than a passing mention of gay people, and while their good friend Darryl was black, um...interactions with other cultures tended to be a bit gimmicky or fetishy. It felt dated even at the time. Asian characters only showed up for specifically Asian themed episodes, despite San Fransisco having a holy cow giant Asian population.

Plus, LBR, their approach to their magic was kind of...white girl esque. I'll figure out how to describe what I mean later.

Another sign of times changing- today's dramas have faster moving plots which ramp up the intensity much sooner. Plotting has to be tight, with fewer stand alone episodes. Showrunners no longer have the time to leisurely get around to it, they have to grab the audience right away with something that'll play well on Netflix. It has to be "bingeable", so the plot can't be allowed to rest. The CW especially seems to push shows to move their plots along quickly to keep the attention of their young audience (I guess?). The OG Charmed started in an era when "monster of the week" shows were the norm. There was an overarching plot from the start but...it took them like three seasons to get to where the reboot was at the end of Season 1.

In the OG, Phoebe's marriage to Cole lasted several episodes and includes Phoebe getting pregnant after Cole screws with her birth control. In the reboot, Maggie (the equivalent to Phoebe)'s wedding to a demon prince lasts one episode and they don't end up going through with it. The reboot kills off all the Elders at the end of S1, instead of five/six seasons later, and the equivalent of of the "magic school" portal showed up at the start of Season 2 instead of years later. And the plot where the Charmed Ones have to fake their own deaths to avoid the demons didn't come until nearly the end of the OG show.

This time it happened by Season 2. They used it as a chance to move the show's setting from the fictional Hilltown, Michigan to Seattle and set up a new world for the characters to move in. They no longer go to college, instead, two of them work at a place called "Safe Space Seattle". It's a "co working" space, Maggie is an assistant manager and Mel has taken over a Wiccan shop. Safe Space is also what's on the other side of the secret "command center", this version's equivalent of the "magic school" that was accessed through the wall of the original Halliwell house.

Makes sense. People do...not like shows set on college campuses for some reason. And it echoes the original version better, as that was mostly about young people trying to navigate the normal working world while also being able to blow things up with their minds.

And honestly, San Fransisco isn't the same these days, I'd venture to say Seattle is the new San Fransisco.



I would also add that there are other reasons besides "they're too old" that probably prevented The CW from bringing the original cast back. Meaning, the network may not want to have to deal with three out of the four of those particular actresses, while Kaley Cuoco's character was extremely unpopular...


The show itself is decently entertaining and well done. It's not life changing to me but I would say it's better in certain ways than say, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. You heard me.