The Book of Three
Reviewed by Tim McCree
May 2004

BOOK: The Book of Three: The Official Companion to The Hit Show

This book has been a long time in coming and it is a must have for all fans of Charmed, past and present. I really enjoyed reading this book. Although I am not the enthusiastic Charmed fan I once was, I liked the memories this book brought back for me. It is very well written and great attention is paid to all the details. The authors really did their homework when they wrote this book. All most all the information a Charmed fan could want can be found within its pages.

The book is a detailed look at Charmed from Seasons One through Five. In it you will find descriptions of the main characters (the Charmed Ones, Leo, Cole) and the supporting characters (Patty, Penny, Daryl, Andy). Also, there is a section that gives a rough time line history of the Halliwell family.

The descriptions of the main characters is well written, although it really did not tell me anything I didn’t already know. However, one thing I didn’t like was how they ended Cole’s entry with him being "vanquished finally and forever". As I have repeatedly pointed out elsewhere, Cole came back from being vanquished once, so it is logical to assume he can do so again. Granted Julian McMahon has a new series, Nip/Tuck, which no doubt takes up a great deal of his time, however, a future guest appearance on Charmed cannot be ruled out. I think they should have ended Cole’s entry with something like "Cole appears to be gone, for the time being". Just a little something to show the door is open should Mr. McMahon decide to come back for an episode or two.

As for the other character entries, they are pretty much spot on, except of course that the information is now somewhat out of date. The reason being is that this book only covers up until the end of Season Five and we are now almost at the end of Season Six. Oh well...

This section also has a brief rundown of all the alternate realities and histories the Charmed Ones have encountered in the shows run, up until the end of Season Five.

You will also find sections that give descriptions of all the magical beings that were featured on the show until the end of Season Five. The beings in question are divided into two categories, Good and Evil, which are then divided into sub-categories. The Good side includes witches, white lighters, muses, etc, while the Evil side includes Warlocks, Demons, dark lighters, etc. In short, all the magical beings you remember are included here.

Although most of the magical beings are described correctly, there are some things that bothered me. For example, the character of Hannah Webster is not listed among the Warlocks, but rather among the shape shifters. Now, I know that shape shifting is one of Hannah’s powers, but Wicca Envy clearly identified her as a Warlock, so I think that Hannah’s description should have been in the Warlock section. After all, aren’t shape shifters just more Warlocks?

Also there is a brief description of Chris Perry in the section covering good magical beings. However, since this book does not include any information from Season Six, much of this description is no doubt out of date now.

There are also sections for powers, spells, potions, and rituals, for both Good and Evil. These sections also include the episodes that said spells/potions/rituals happened in and descriptions of the results of those same spells/potions/rituals (such as the Kill Nicholas spell from That 70's Episode).

Rounding out the book is an Episode Guide covering Seasons One through Five, a glossary of Charmed terms, and a look behind the scenes. The Episode Guide is well done, however, I couldn’t help but notice that while some episode descriptions were long and detailed, others were very short, only a couple of paragraphs long. I wonder why this happened? Perhaps making well detailed guides for all the episodes would have taken too long? I really have no answer for this.

As a bonus, there are several color pages of various characters and scenes from the show. These pictures are a joy to look at.

The behinds the scenes interviews are really well done. Although, as most of you probably know, I am not his biggest fan, the interview with Brad Kern was very well presented. Mr. Kern gives a well detailed interview of what it’s like to be producer of Charmed and names some of his favorite episodes. Although I strongly disagree with the direction Mr. Kern has taken the show since the beginning of Season Five, I do recommend this interview to all Charmed fans.

Also included in this section are interviews with Aaron Spelling and E. Duke Vincent, both executive producers of Charmed. Like Mr. Kern, they give their insights and opinions on the show. Since neither of these men are involved with the day-to-day running of the show, you’ll see that their interviews are somewhat shorter than the one with Brad Kern.

Also, I enjoyed the interviews with the principle actors, Alyssa Milano (Phoebe), Holly Marie Combs (Piper), Brian Krause (Leo), and Dorian Gregory (Daryl). It was fun reading how each actor has made the character they play their own. A character is more than just a being from a script, it takes the actors involved to bring said character to life, and the Charmed actors do just that. These people are very good in their roles. Although, in my opinion of course, they have been in some pretty bad scripts lately, I have yet to see any of them give a bad performance. Part of being a good actor is the ability to rise above what has been written and give it your best shot, no matter what.

Also, these interviews describe a lot of the work the actors do off screen as well. For example, following the events of 9/11/01, Alyssa Milano wrote a letter to the cast and crew. She then shared with all of them so they could come together as one family during those trying times. It’s the little things like these that make these interviews show that these actors are real people, just like you and me.

However, I cannot help but notice that some important individuals who should have been included in this section were left out for reasons I do not know.

Constance M. Burge, the person who CREATED Charmed to begin with, was noticeably absent. For me this really doesn’t make sense because, even though she hasn’t been involved with the show for several years now, if it wasn’t for Ms. Burge, there would be no Charmed to begin with. So why wasn’t she included?

Also, in the actor interviews, both Shannen Doherty (Prue Halliwell) and Julian McMahon (Cole Turner) are excluded. Why? Although neither are currently involved with Charmed now, there were major parts of the show for a very long time (both their characters are currently deceased, but could possibly return at some future point, you never know) . Indeed, interviews with both these actors SHOULD have been included in this book.

Now, it’s possible that Constance Burge, Shannen Doherty, and Julian McMahon were approached for interviews, but declined for various reasons. However, the book makes no mention of this, this is just a theory I came up with on my own.

As for T.W. King (Andy Trudeau) and Greg Vaughn (Dan Gordon), the jury is still out in whether these two actors should have been included, since their characters only lasted a single season. Although the fact that Andy was a big part of Prue’s background and her life does push me in support of Mr. King’s inclusion in this book.

Still, despite these exclusions, this is a good book for any truly Charmed fan to own. 
I give it a 9/10 rating.

  HOME