Dusting Off the Cauldron: Charmed Season 1, An Overview

In its first season, Charmed got off to a pretty decent, if weird, start. It had a couple of hits and misses, but soon the show really started to hit the ground running, and eventually it managed to become the Charmed I grew to love. Season one featured many key moments in the Charmed Ones lives; Discovering their magical heritage and being reunited, discovering how to cope with their newfound gifts, and suffering their first major loss at the hands the demonic world. It all made for an entertaining and fun ride.

Starring:
Shannen Doherty (Prue Halliwell)
Holly Marie Combs (Piper Halliwell)
Alyssa Milano (Phoebe Halliwell)
TW King (Andy Trudeau)
Dorian Gregory (Darryl Morris)

The series opens with all the three sister’s identities being clearly laid out. Prue: the responsible workaholic. Piper: the sensitive middle child. And Phoebe: the youngest and the wildest. These identities become more and more blurred as the series progresses, partly due to character growth, partly due to necessity on behalf of the writers to come up with a new episode script, but mostly they remain intact. A lot happened to the girls over the 8 years of the show, so naturally they were going to change. Of course, there was the whole dynamic change due to Shannon’s departure, but more on that in a later review.  

In Season One, these personalities were kept mostly consistent. We saw Prue look after the family, Piper act as the mediator between Prue and Phoebe’s clashes, and Phoebe doing whatever she wanted. There was something so believable about the way that they interacted, not only in this season but in the series. It was always evident through both the girls’ acting, and the writing itself, that they cared deeply for each other and there was a strong bond between them, making the ‘Power of Three’ possible. The show always played around with the different relationships, Phoebe and Prue’s in particular. ‘The Power of Two’ showed how they coped without their buffer and, at least in a small way, deal with a lot of underlying issues they had with each other.

The opening episode ’Something Wicca This Way Comes’ (one of the cleverer episode titles, which may give you an indication of how ridiculous they will become) was a strong one. Burge seemed to have a clear idea what she wanted the show to be like. This is evident in each of the sister’s personalities, and the overall theme of the show. The line that was used frequently, “Three sisters who happen to be witches, not three witches who happen to be sisters”, has always been kept a main part of the story, even in the dodgy later years.

The early episodes that followed the first seemed to find the show suffering a bit of an identity crisis, trying to maintain the high bar they had raised. The episodes also tend to age quite badly, ‘I’ve Got You under My Skin’ and ‘The Wedding from Hell’, for example, but the majority of them are still quite fun to watch. One thing I’m glad they did was get rid of their original father (that sounds ridiculous, but you know what I mean). James Read was a much better suit, and the revised story behind his departure made more sense, and made his presence in later seasons far more believable.

The show started to have a lot more fun towards the middle of the season, with episodes like ‘Is There a Woogy in the House?’, and the writers really started to find themselves, and make more sense of the characters they had created. Turning the sisters bad, and into different creatures almost always resulted in a great episode and none more so than ‘the Wendigo’, which really played on Piper’s quiet and sensitive persona and ‘Woogy, which highlighted Phoebe’s proximity toward evil, something which was an important part of the seasons to follow.

One of the things that occurred throughout the series was many different trips back and forward in time. Almost every season had one or two, and season one’s ‘That 70’s Episode’, is the first of these journeys, and it turned into one of the greatest hours in the shows run. The girls got to meet their mother and ease the pain of such a massive loss from their childhood, Phoebe in particular.

The Prue/Andy love story was a little clique at times. They were pretty much guaranteed trouble with him being involved in law enforcement, and her involved in so many unsolved crimes. Never the less, they did make a great pairing, which is what made his death so heartbreaking. ‘Deja Vu All over Again’ remains one of the series’ stronger episodes, and while watching it back, I found it make just as much of an impact as it did the first time round.

One thing I did love about the earlier seasons was the mythological aspect of the demon of the week plots. Creatures that we saw in the younger episodes were ones that actually looked like evil beings, not just a bad actor in too much leather. Sure, at times, the prosthetics was little 90’s looking, but the fact that an effort was made to make it look somewhat decent should count for something. The demon world was changed in the middle seasons to a far more structured one, with hierarchies and demonic circles. Both approaches had their pros and cons, but this was definitely one aspect that I missed.

Charmed’s introductory season had some of the series’ best episodes, and admittedly some of the worst. But I don’t think anybody can really contest that it was a decent start and without such a strong opening, the show might not have run as long as it did.

Best Episode: ‘That 70’s Episode’. It’s a fan favourite for a good reason, featuring some special moments, and really got to me as I watched it all again. If I had to pick another, ‘Déjà Vu All over Again’ would be a pretty close second.

Worst Episode: ‘The Wedding from Hell’. Despite being led by Burge herself, this episode was awful. It was clique, badly acted and terribly written. If this was the way she wanted to go with the show, I’m glad she was stopped. 'Feats of Clay' was another stinker.

Best Character(s): Prue, Piper & Phoebe, since all three sisters were likeable in this season. Andy and Darryl served their purpose, but no more than that really.

Worst Character (s): Rex and Hanna were intolerable and a bit laughable as villains. As the first major threat (one that lasted more than one episode, that is), there really was no fear factor involved.

7.5/10