Written by Jayse Smith
The CW is rebooting Charmed so the new cast and showrunners attended San Diego Comic-Con with words of encouragement for fans of the original.
Cast your minds back to the mid 90’s. Buffy was slaying vamps, Rocko’s Modern Life was all the rage, and three sister witches dominated the television world. Those witches? The Charmed Ones.
The series Charmed was originally created by Constance M Burge, and centred around the Halliwell sisters—Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano)—who are the most powerful witches of their time. The sisters fought mostly on the side of good, but there were some episodes which saw the witches lured into the dark side. There were always epic storylines and a strong sense of family and love throughout.
At the end of season three, Doherty’s character was killed off and Rose McGowan stepped in to play the character Paige Matthews for the remaining five seasons. With demon vanquishing, spell casting, and awesome powers, they were a force to be reckoned with, so much so that the series is now getting a reboot on The CW and we saw a first look at the series back in May.
So who’s actually in this reboot? Madeleine Mantock (The Tomorrow People), Melonie Diaz (The Breaks), and Sarah Jeffrey (Shades of Blue) The show has also cast some leading gents in the form of Rupert Evans (The Man in the High Castle) as a character named Harry. Reports say that he’ll play a charming professor with a mysterious interest in the sisters. This may suggest he’s a Whitelighter and also Ser’Darius Blain (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), as a character named Galvin, who appears to be the perfect boyfriend.
Wait no Alyssa Milano? No Holly Marie Combs? No Rose McGowan? NO! We have seen a slew of tweets and posts on social media earlier this year from former cast members who are not too keen on the reboot. Holly Marie Combs (Piper) has been the most vocal with a number of Twitter posts:
We wish them well. #Charmed
— Holly Marie Combs (@H_Combs) January 26, 2018
Here’s the thing. Until you ask us to rewrite it like Brad Kern did weekly don’t even think of capitalizing on our hard work. Charmed belongs to the 4 of us, our vast amount of writers, crews and predominantly the fans. FYI you will not fool them by owning a title/stamp. So bye.
— Holly Marie Combs (@H_Combs) January 26, 2018
Her on-screen sister (Milano) and half-sister (McGowan) have added their voice to the forum also with McGowan tweeting, “They really are running out of ideas in Hollywood,” back in 2013 after the rumour of a Charmed reboot and she further added, “Lame lame lame lamertons”. Milano whose comment was probably the softest of the lot said, “The thing about them doing a #charmed reboot is… it just… it feels like yesterday. It feels too close.”
The San Diego Comic Con Buzz
After taking such a bashing from the original cast of the series, executive producers Jennie Snyder Urman and Jessica O’Toole, along with cast members Sarah Jeffery, Madeleine Mantock and Melonie Diaz delighted fans with a screening of the pilot. The screening was followed by a panel discussion which focused around how they planned to honour the original series.
“The original was so much about female empowerment and sisterhood and strong women taking over the world and I feel like that’s what we need right now,” Urman says of why she wanted to revive the classic fan favourite. “It felt like a good time to get back to that and show women kicking ass.”
During the panel Jeffrey also stated that the new series isn’t here to ‘replace’ the original, “Charmed is so iconic,” she says. “They laid the groundwork and we want to be respectful of that and the mythology of everything. We want to honour it while bringing a modern twist. Come join us!”
Fans reacted well to this new modernisation of the series with mention of a fit-bit possessing demon, “Well my favourite is… like a demon that possesses your Fitbit,” O’Toole said when asked about demons we’ll get to see the sisters battle in Season 1. “It drains your youth and lifeforce as you step. It makes you keep walking until you die, basically. We haven’t totally conceptualized it, but something like that.” It seems as though with this blend of humour pared with demon kicking sisters, the producers and cast may yet again be on to a winner.
Charmed is set to premiere Sunday October 14th at 9 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
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