Charmed hit the air waves in October of 1998. Back then, I wouldn’t have thought it would survive eight seasons nor that there would be such marked changes over the course of that eight years. If I’m being completely honest, Charmed was not the best series ever but it is far from the worst and it is most definitely entertaining.
It took a while for the series to really find its stride. The first season was a bit shaky, but that’s hardly unusual. They hadn’t quite nailed down quite what they wanted the back story to be nor the rules or magic. Even so, after the first couple of years, much of the mythology seems to have been worked out.
While I enjoyed the first three seasons as they aired, the show was starting to feel a bit old. This was possibly because it was overshadowed by Prue’s intensely strong character. While many would say that Charmed jumped the shark when Prue was killed off and Paige was introduced, it is my opinion that that move saved the show. With Piper as the eldest (and de facto leader), it allowed Phoebe and eventually Paige to thrive and truly come into their own. In fact, the dynamic between the three title characters really settled down and felt natural after Prue died. And, perhaps, the fact that they didn’t just try to have Paige replace Prue or what have you helped immensely.
Over the years, we’ve seen co-stars come and go, former bad guys turn good and then turn bad again, angels turn human and then back to angels and then human again, love interests come and go and sometimes come back, forbidden live, deadly sins, deep sorrow, great joy, and pretty much everything else a fantasy drama should have. Sure, there have been screw-ups with the continuity along the way, but for the most part, it wasn’t so glaring that one couldn’t look past it and enjoy the story.
It was interesting to see as the years progressed with ever more powerful enemies being defeated by ever more powerful witches. It wasn’t quite obvious just what they were going to come up with for the next year. I mean, how do you top vanquishing the source of all evil? But they did. And, for the most part, it didn’t come off as totally lame, either.
Now we come down to the finale. Originally, last season’s finale was supposed to be the end of the series, and it would have worked well as such, even though it did feel like soemthing of a lame cop out. That left the question hanging all year just what they were going to do this time. And, I have to say, this finale was much better. You could see they had a long time to plan and build up to it and it allowed them to really send the show off well.
In the end, we have all three surviving sisters paired off and married. Piper has Leo, a former whiteligher and elder. Paige has Henry, a parole officer and mortal (although I wouldn’t be surprised to see him turn out to be a future whitelighter). And Pheobe finally finds true love with Coop, a cupid. So the charmed ones themselves get happily ever afters. In fact, the montage with the narration by the three stars at the end is a really nice tie-up, giving us glimpses into the future for the entire family.
It’s not all happy in the end, though. Billie, the charmed ones’ protégée for the final season, has to make an absolutely cruel descision. She spent most of her life looking for her sister who was kidknapped as a child. She finally finds her and is reunited. Unfortunately, she has been turned evil and cannot be redeemed. Billie kills her in self defense by refecting her own fireball back on her. That has got to be up near the top of cruel twists of fate that have occurred on the show.
I kind of like that they didn’t finish everything up in a nice package labelled "and they all lived happily ever after and all the evil ones were saved from their dark ways". That would have really been lame. This ending felt somehow right, more as though it was the end of a chapter in a much larger story than the end of the story altogether. Granted. the time travel scheme that brought everyone together for the group love-in at the end was a bit too Star Trek-y for my liking, but hey, if you set that aside, the story made quite a bit of sense and was a great way to bring in much of the family from previous shows for a joint good-bye.
I think I can safely say that while Charmed has been a fun part of my life for the past eight years, I won’t miss it. It feels finished and I can bid if a fond farewell.
If only there were more shows like Charmed on the air. No matter what you think of Charmed as a show, you have to admit that it didn’t shy away from the hard parts of life nor did it stoop to gratuitous sex and violence (mostly). And, for the most part, it managed to be entertaining.