Charrrmed Review

For campy, light entertainment this recent installment of the Charmed 2004 season almost filled the bill. The writers pulled and tugged viewers into a pirate themed show. This light episode will not go down in Charmed history as being one of the best but it was pleasant enough. But is pleasant enough good enough?

Our beloved characters seem to be lackluster in attitude and general stamina. Charmed experienced a 4th year lucky break with the exit of Shannen Doherty and entrance of Rose McGowan. The 4th year was revitalized with the entrance of Paige who provided new antagonist/protagonist material for the writers and actors to bounce off. The 4th year of an episodic television program is traditionally where writing gets stale and actors get tired. Well, we are now in the “second” 4th year of this series and some wear and tear is showing. Our favorite Charmed actors need a shot of adrenaline and the writers need a trip to the beach to clean their auras. We are still tuning in to bring Piper, Phoebe and Paige into our homes but this writer wonders if their heart is still in it. Ladies, we love you, but please don’t phone your performances in.

“Charrrmed!” gave us the always welcome opportunity to have Harve Presnell grace our screens as Captain Jack Cutting. Always nice to see you, Harve. The laser beam ballet scene was fun to watch and fairly well executed and we wondered how much of it Alyssa Milano actually did herself. We dismissed the small fact that when Piper broke the glass case then froze the pieces – the pieces were breaking the laser beams and would have set the alarm off. Hey, this is not Alias, this is Charmed and we liked it. Viewers should take note that one of the 2004 producers is one of the talented Alias writers, Debra J. Fisher, so a little laser dance is nice. We were offered a little more eye candy in the entrance of Former "Dawson's Creek" co-star Kerr Smith, as FBI agent Brody. At least this eye candy can act and will provide some interesting interactions with Paige in future story arcs. Although the Charmed Ones seem to be ignoring the “gathering storm”, viewers were given a few more flashing arrows pointing us toward a sweeps story arc. Viewers take note – even “evil” does not want to be around for the gathering storm.

Lastly, a few questions to be thrown to the writers. Where in San Francisco is there a pirate cave full of treasure that was accessible by Inspectors Morris, Sheridan and Agent Brody? Is there a specific reason that the writer’s have Phoebe tearing her clothes off in her office, again? She has more class than that. Each actress has had significantly less screen time, are we trying to vanquish the leads? For an early season episode, this was not too bad.