Charmed wears its woke heart on its sleeve

Vanity Fair

From its Hillary Clinton-inspired "Stronger Together" slogan to its use of #MeToo posters to its "it's a reckoning" line, the Charmed reboot makes it very apparent that it's a woke and feminist series. "This hammering lack of subtlety isn’t necessarily a bad thing; the original Charmed was hardly understated, and its stars will be the first to say that it was plenty feminist as well," says Laura Bradley. "Still, it’s tough to know how seriously the CW version takes itself—and that’s a question it should try to answer, since the original Charmed worked largely because it was so unabashedly cheesy." She adds that Charmed boss Jennie Snyder Urman and her co-producers "have proven on Jane the Virgin that they know how to run a house filled with strong female characters—but that show’s earnestness feels incompatible with the world of Charmed, at least as the show was originally conceived. The premiere’s funniest, most memorable scenes largely come courtesy of (Rupert) Evans, who is clearly having a blast as the whitelighter—enough to make you wish the rest of the cast could lighten up a little. Especially in such a girl power-driven series, it’s a bit of a bummer to see the bulk of the show’s punch lines handed off to a guy. Then again, maybe the Vera sisters will have more jokes to make once they’ve had time to accept their mother’s death and enjoy their newly discovered powers."

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• Charmed is plagued by issues both aesthetic and cultural -- the dialogue feels forced and the rhythm is jarring
• Charmed feels decidedly 2018: It's taking its duties as a feminist witch story for a new generation very, very seriously
• Charmed's goal seems to have the opposite problem of the original: It's trying to hit too many beats in 40 minutes
• Some of the effects are legitimately good, but some effects resemble the low-budget effects of the original series
• Charmed would stand a chance if it ditched the clunky humor
• Charmed has been branded as a Latina reboot, but only one of the actresses is actually Latina
• Why it's okay that Charmed's Latina characters aren't all played by Latina actresses