Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Charmed (2018): Season 1

 

This is a reboot of the late 1990s TV series of the same name about three sisters who are powerful witches who fight evil (mainly in the form of various demons). This version stars Madeleine Mantock, Melonie Diaz, and Sarah Jeffrey as the titular "Charmed Ones" Macy, Mel, and Maggie, and Rupert Evans as their Whitelighter, Harry. The supporting cast includes Nick Hargrove, Ellen Tamaki, Ser'Darius Blain, Natalie Hall, Craig Parker, Valerie Cruz, Leah Pipes, and Virginia Williams. The 22-episode first season aired during the 2018/2019 TV season. The show's premise is similar to the original series, three sisters discover that they are witches whose powers have been activated after the death of a family member. In the original series, it was the grandmother's death, and in this series, it was the mother's death. This series includes characters such as Elders and Whitelighters and various demons. Where the original series was more of a blend of procedural and serial storylines, this series uses much more serial storytelling, with the primary storylines of each episode building on the next. There are some monster-of-the-week storylines, but not as many as the original series had, especially in its first couple of seasons. 

The blu-ray (and DVD) set is a five-disc set. It should be noted that the individual seasons were only released on DVD, but the complete series was released on Blu-Ray after the series ended. All the extras are included on the final disc. Those include a making-of featurette featuring interviews with the showrunners and cast and a short gag reel. The A/V quality of the Blu-Ray is outstanding. The show is actually much better than it got credit for being. It got backlash when it was announced for not including the original cast members. Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs expressed their disappointment. However, the showrunners stated that they had already told that story and wanted to be its own show and be more inclusive, by having the sisters be multi-racial and include LGBT characters. Some people will also hate it because it is "woke," which to the extent that is really a thing, it absolutely is. Within the monster fighting storylines, the show does tackle real-world issues such as sexual assault, discrimination, and the like. So, if that bothers you, you should absolutely steer clear. 

Ultimately, the show is good, but like the original, it has its silly parts (it has a bit of a prime-time soap opera element to it) and the writers sometimes set things up without good follow up. The special effects are light years beyond what the original series had (even in the later seasons). Of course, that has a lot to do with CGI being much better than in 1998, and this show having a larger effects budget since the actors in the show were not big names. The writing is a bit inconsistent but the acting is very good. While I cannot say that everyone who loved the original series will like this one, if you were a fan of the original series (or just a fan of the fantasy genre in general) this is worth checking out.