Charmed 5.05 'Witches in Tights'

'Charmed's take on superheroes is something I really could have lived without. Despite Mark A. Sheppard’s presence, this episode is one of the lesser ones of the season. The weakness of the story this week was covered up with total idiocy, but despite most of the episodes outright terribleness, there are a few important things happening.

In ‘Witches in Tights,’ a demon forces a young witch to use his power of projection to turn him into a superhero so he can steal an elder’s powers. Paige has trouble with her powers, and Phoebe continues to have trouble getting through to Cole.

I really don’t like superheroes that much. In ‘Smallville’ I could just about handle they’re constant appearances, but here I really didn’t enjoy it. True, turning the girls into superheroes themselves was fun enough, but to a point. I think a lot of the flashiness was placed here to disguise the pretty flat demonic plot that featured during ‘Witches in Tights’. I am a huge fan of Sheppard, who has made numerous, equally brilliant appearances since this one, but unfortunately even his great performance couldn’t save us from the dire ones of our other guest stars. Bad demon trying to use good guy’s powers for evil has been done time and time again. Nothing new has been added to the mix in order to give this episode a little more substance either, other than the superhero twist of course. Parts of the super-girl story were fun, I will admit, but it wasn't enough to save it and it was all wrapped up rather dully. 

This is the first time we actually meet an Elder face to face, and it was quite an anti-climax. Honestly, he really only came across as a sarcastic old man, not a magical being of great knowledge and power that we've been hearing about all these years. Even the idea of tying in the innocent as our future elder didn’t help salvage such a dull sub-plot. What it did do is give us a little more insight into what to expect from Piper and Leo’s unborn child, hinting at a lot more to be discovered in the near future.

Cole and Phoebe’s struggles face a major block here. I can only assume his decision to kill the landlord comes from the evil nature of his demonic powers, something that Phoebe’s been banging on about since the start of the season. The past couple of episodes make Phoebe’s argument seem a lot weightier than it was a few weeks before.

I'm really loving how the series is handling Piper's pregnancy this season, it all feels very natural and all the cute problems she has each week seem to be ones that you'd expect a balls-up woman like Piper to be dealing with but despite some fun revolving around Paige’s awkwardly timed orbing, ‘Witches in Tights’ is mostly another silly hour.

5.5/10