I Just Can't Walk Away

   Once upon a time, I watched a fair amount of TV and fell in love with three different actresses for very different shows. There was Alyssa Milano on Who's The Boss?, there was Shannen Doherty on Beverly Hills, 90210 as well as Our House (and let us never forget the perfect movie that was Heathers), and Holly Marie Combs in Picket Fences.

  Now. Imagine my sheer, unadulterated glee at realizing all three would be in the same show and it would be about witches? I'm pretty sure if you listen carefully, you can still hear younger!me squeeing about it even now. Yes, that high pitched shriek that's been bothering you for more than 20 years at this point is me shrieking at a show pretty much perfectly tailored to me. Later that joy will turn to bitterness but let's not dwell on that. Nope.

( Oh, do go on, self. You're so interesting. )
Enough preamble. Let's get onto the rewatch.

  Honestly, the pilot is a good, solid episode. It's not earth shattering and awesome and something that sets up the series for failure to live up to that initial promise, but it's also not "sweet baby Jesus, what did I just watch?" I still remember the feeling I had after first watching it and thinking that while it wasn't AH-MAZING I wanted to know more and the wait might kill me.

   Charmed has always worked best when it focused on the sisters who are witches not witches who are sisters angle and the pilot exemplifies this.

( Recap. )


   A lot of things work for Something Wicca This Way Comes. It's not painfully dated in anything other than fashion and currently the 90's are having a comeback so even that's not a big thing. The sisters are realistic in their squabbles. Prue versus Phoebe feels real and so does their attempt at bonding after the pharmacy fiasco. Piper's ability to be friends with both works and I like her acknowledgment that she and Phoebe had things easier as kids than Prue did. It sets Prue up to be a bit more standoffish, but it's clear that she and Piper are close considering they had an apartment together. Romantic history is hinted at in various ways for all three sisters, from Piper's easy going romance with Jeremy, to Prue's spark for Andy, and let us not forget the PITA that is Roger for both Phoebe and Prue.

  On the powers front, I relate so freaking hardcore to Phoebe. While both Piper and Prue lament not being normal anymore, Phoebe is practically dancing in the street at the idea of not being normal, at being something more than she was yesterday. She's super into her birthright and she immediately throws herself into research mode. I won't say I forgot how much I loved early Phoebe, because I knew... and it's part of why I have so many problems with her characterization in the later seasons. S1 Phoebe is snarky, defensive, and abrasive at times, but she also wants to be better and to be more. She wants to earn her place back in her family and if she gets to learn some interesting family history along the way, all the better.


   The show also sets up things that will later pay off. Andy's suspicions about the cat and what it means that the Halliwells have it, Morris being dragged into the occult whether he wants to be or not, Melinda Warren, and even their father issues even if that one is going to be something I will rant about until the day I die. Also, the running theme of all three sisters having less than stellar luck in love, though I do think it's adorable that the morning after Piper's boyfriend nearly kills her remaining family, she's still the one to tell Prue that not only do witches date, they get the best guys. Is it because she's a hopeless romantic? Well, yes, but also she knows that Prue needs a push towards Andy and goddamn it, I'm sucked right back in.

  Yes, its probably best not to look too hard at the attempt at Wicca and I should mention that the special effects are probably dated as well, but they were then too so eh. Jeremy's handing of the athame while trying to menace Piper is laughably bad and I kind of wish we'd gotten the reveal about Jeremy later on in the series... but not really because just looking at him you knew he was a bad guy.


   The magic works because the underlying sisterhood works and while I probably wouldn't list this episode as my favorite, it's definitely worth a watch.


( Quotes and nitpicks and things to keep an eye out for in the future. )

See you next week for I've Got You Under My Skin. You can watch along on Netflix or pick up the DVDs for insanely cheap considering the remastered version is coming out at the end of the month.

Mmm. Sweet Valley fix. I'm a big dork, I admit this freely, but few things make me happier than reading total brain cotton candy. So every few months, give or take a few due to life, I renew my search for missing SV books. I'm thisclose to finishing off SVU, and would have done so already except everytime I think I'll breakdown and buy the six books I'm missing, something will come up. For instance, the last of the actual series, non extra-fluffy special versions? I keep thinking I've bought it already. I know, I have a list. I consult said list for most purchases of anything not twin/kid related, and yet I still think I already own this book. It's insane. To be fair, I didn't check off all the books I snagged last time, so this go round it was perfectly justifiable. Other times I am obviously just plain stupid. For the remaining diary books, I think I've read them all, and if not, the only one I haven't is for a character, I quite frankly spend a great deal of time trying to forget ever existed. The other two I'm split on. I don't remember one and the other one sucked so much that all I remember is cringing at the thought of touching the book to return it. :p As for the thrillers, those are actually normal excuses. They only come up when I can't afford them, or when something I want more is also up for grabs.

I know, that was absolutely thrilling for anyone other than me. No, you can't have that minute or so of your life back, and no, I have no intention of making it worth your while, either. Infact, I shall blather on a little more about my cotton candy fluff.

Said SV book was Mystery Date and for some reason I thought it came up earlier in the series. Which happens a lot for any series I re-read. Since the whole point of the book was to set up Olivia and Ken, I thought they had more than three or four books after that as a couple. But no, they don't. Weird girl finally gets the guy and what do they do? They kill her. Oh yes. Which I guess is better than if they'd substituted Enid in, but since Liv only made a cameo in SVU, they could get away with the timelines not matching exactly. Enid gets entire crazy storylines, so they couldn't very well give her a boyfriend and then off her and not get at least one person writing in and saying, "What. The. Hell?" And while re-reading MD made me cringe at some of the writing and slang, which I'd be willing to bet good money was already outdated when the book hit shelves, it's still one of the happier making books. So long as one ignores the general b-story. *twitch* Jocks versus burnouts indeed.

From one geekdom to another! Over the weekend I decided to buy an Obitsu body to see if I'd just grown used to seeing them everywhere or if I still wanted to gouge my eyes out with a pen if given a choice. I'm guessing, seeing as my eyes are still intact, that I've gone to the dark side, if only for a visit. In theory, I bought it for Evie, only when I was actually buying it, I kept waffling on the color. At the time of flipping a coin, it was down to two... Did I buy the one I suspected matched her best, orrr did I go with super pale cuz Isa needed a new body first, and if she didn't like it, one of about nine billion others would? I meant to go with the first, but ended up with the latter. Which is fine. The color difference doesn't make my eyes bleed for Evie, so she'll keep it until I buy her... her own body. Then the other pale girls can duke it out, and whomever wins must divide their original body up as I see fit. Or something. [If Isa wins, Tish gets a new arm]
And in a fit of stupidity, I then spent the next forever hacking away at that cursed plastic nub so we could try it on. Which sounds weird, but I'm not rewording that, kay? Accept that it's weird and move on. Move on!
Half a forever later, Evie was all boobified. Now she creaks like an old woman, but is surprisingly flirty for one I suspect so ebil. Which is extremely noticible when you put her next to another doll. In this instance, it was Fil. The two were doomed when they arrived, what with him looking ever so plastic and she was bitching about earrings the size of small children and good god, the bangs... Now he's still pretty plastic, but she's able to threaten or flirt. Naturally the camera's batteries died so you'll have to wait for photographic evidence. I imagine you'll survive. Somehow.

Odd but true: Dreams within dreams within dreams fork over the best sleep I've had in ages. It's very, very weird.