Charmed Magically Stays Alive
Last April on the set of The WB Network's Sunday-night supernatural drama Charmed, tempers were a bit frayed. The seventh-season finale was in production, and there was no word yet on whether the show had been renewed.
Star Holly Marie Combs, who plays Piper, the eldest of three demon-vanquishing good-witch sisters, was getting a bit cranky. "I'm not going to sugarcoat it," she said at the time. "I am not pleased. After this amount of time on a network, we deserve better."
Brian Krause, who plays Piper's husband, Leo, was more optimistic, saying, "I think they'd be silly not to bring us back."
"Whatever's going to be is what's going to be," philosophized Rose McGowan, who plays youngest sister Paige.
Alyssa Milano, who spent the better part of her 20s playing middle-sister Phoebe, worried more about the fans, saying, "I don't get ... not giving them what they deserve for hanging in for seven years, because that's going to lose more audience."
The word finally came at the 11th hour, right before the network was to announce its fall schedule to advertisers in mid-May. Apparently, The WB was not willing to toss out the show's 3.5 to 4 million weekly viewers (who would then see promos for The WB's new fall shows). The new season begins on Sunday, Sept. 25.
Says network entertainment chief David Janollari (to whom executive producer Brad Kern had made an impassioned pitch for the new season), "The pickup of Charmed, which has long been a terrific performer for us and held its ground really nicely in its seventh season, was a matter of saying, 'Let's continue to have an 8 o'clock show to anchor the night that we know performs and has a loyal audience."
The decision was also made to add a new, younger witch, Billie, played by Kaley Cuoco (8 Simple Rules).
With Billie, Janollari wants to "spice things up a little bit, to bring potentially a new and somewhat younger audience into the show."
And, as hope springs eternal in the network breast, Kern points out, "Janollari has some hope, however much of a long shot, that Kaley's character, in combination with any one of the sisters, may want to come back, could keep the show going. There's always that possibility. That door is not closed."
All this happy news meant, of course, that Kern now had to dig himself out the deep dramatic hole he created for the finale.
He had allowed the sisters, collectively known as The Charmed Ones, to wipe their slates clean and start new lives with new identities (played by different actresses), while also protecting the secret of their magical abilities.
"I didn't know we were coming back," Kern says. "What was I supposed to do? It was more of a series finale than a season finale. But there were more than enough elements in there, building blocks, to help me and the writing staff dig out of it, and we have. We've got the first six scripts written as we speak."
One might wonder, with three witch sisters and another witch on the way, why Kern doesn't simply have someone cast a spell and undo everything? According to Kern, that would be cheating, and the fans would resent it.
"Magic might be a Band-Aid," he says, "but it won't be the solution. Our folks wouldn't stick with us if they saw us do, 'Oh, never mind, that didn't really happen.' We have to get out of it authentically. We have to earn it.
"That turns out to be fun for the first third of the season, watching how the girls live their lives after having feigned their deaths and realizing that maybe the identity they left behind, or some part of that identity, they want back."
Unfortunately for Kern, there won't be any magical solutions for his practical problems either. Although the sisters abandoned their old lives, budget restrictions mean Kern must retain all his standing sets, including the sisters' Victorian house in San Francisco.
"Frankly," Kern says, "our budget was cut back substantially in order to come back. That forced my hand tremendously as far as creative choices. It's funny, that was actually my biggest concern, how can I back the stories and the characters into this new, restricted budget and not have it show?"
Kern also has to find room for some new characters, starting with Billie. When original cast member Shannen Doherty left the show, her character, eldest sister Prue, was killed off, and McGowan joined the cast as long-lost half-sister Paige. Billie, though, won't be a member of the family.
"I think we've brought in enough family members over the years," Kern says. "She's just a young witch who has just come into her powers and thinks it's pretty cool to use them, thinks the world is one big video game.
"In order to preserve some semblance of a normal life, the girls are going to wind up having to recruit her to do some of the demonic heavy lifting. At the same time, they're going to have to teach her what a moral compass is."
Originally, Kern was planning to bring in Sugar Ray frontman and Extra host Mark McGrath as a new love interest for Phoebe. But scheduling conflicts made that impossible, so now former model Jason Lewis (Sex and the City) will do a six-episode stint as Dex, who'll be on Phoebe's romantic radar -- and it may get serious.
"We prophesied in earlier seasons that Phoebe's character is meant to have a child," Kern explains. "That'll have a lot to do with the first six episodes. She's going to realize that if the vision's supposed to happen, she'd better get busy soon."
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