So I’m definitely getting there with Charmed. I’m more than halfway through the series, still loving it, and getting to see episodes that either I’ve never seen before, or that I’ve only seen bits of. I really love watching shows like this in order; you get a real sense of the characters and their different struggles and opinions. I still find that I’m waiting for things to happen, but definitely not as much as before Prue died.
I liked Shannen Doherty as an actress but I just always enjoyed the dynamics with Piper as the older sister and Paige as the tearaway wild child. Also, the whole ‘Ask Phoebe’ column makes it feel like Phoebe has finally found her calling. Piper always knew what she wanted to be and although Prue changed jobs in season 3, the character generally seemed quite happy at Buckland’s Auction House. I suppose with the fourth season, a new sister and one sister married, the characters all felt more settled.
Many shows thrive on unsettling their characters, or forcing them through difficult and unfamiliar situations but I think some of the (excuse the pun) charm of Charmed is that the demon fighting is not an unfamiliar situation. As Piper’s explosion power grows, we begin to see her quite nonchalantly vanquishing demons alone; it has become everyday and ordinary for the three sisters. With Prue, all three were still finding their feet, still exploring their new found magic, but with Paige, Phoebe and Piper are old hands. As they say on an annoyingly frequent basis, ‘We’ve been doing this a lot longer than you’, and that experience is obvious in the characters as well as the series as a whole.
On a technical note, it is also obvious that more money has been awarded to the show after Doherty’s departure. The shots are slicker, the special effects infinitely more realistic, and everything just seems more polished. It’s very possible that they made the switch to HD at this point as well, as the picture is sharper and each image more defined. Whatever they did to improve the quality certainly works, as the show comes off as a lot more solid and weighty, which is difficult when your plot is driven almost solely by the supernatural.
