Totally Charmed Read online

  In more tragic circumstances, actors die. That deprives the world not only of the great spirits that were Jerry Orbach, John Ritter and Jon-Erik Hexum, but of the pleasures of Detective Lenny Briscoe from the Law & Order franchise, Paul Hennessy from 8 Simple Rules . . . and Mac Harper of Cover Up. Maybe it seems trivial, to mourn the loss of a character when a real human has been taken. But really, most of us didn’t know the human. We don’t know if he was a morning person or a night owl; we don’t know if he was scared of heights or spiders; we don’t know if he liked ketchup. Our sympathy for the person and his family, while quite real, has a distance to it. Or it should. But we do mourn, because we knew of that person what he put into his character, and we’ve lost that. We had a seasonal, weekly date with an imaginary friend, and we miss it.

  Thankfully, the death that struck the Charmed Ones at the end of their show’s third season was far less tragic. It was a make-believe death. But on a television series, when a show can rise or fall on the popularity of its characters, losing a major star can spell catastrophe. The popular Web site jumptheshark.com lists not one, not two, but three different ways a show can ruin itself through the loss of a star.

  When Charmed faced (some would say “brought about”) the loss of Shannen Doherty, a lot was put on the line. Not only was Doherty one of the most visible and well-known of the show’s stars—she played one of three sisters who, together, formed the unbeatable Charmed Ones, wielding the Power of Three. The cover of the Book of Shadows; the opening credits; Kit’s collar tag: they all show the Celtic triangle knot, people. Threes!

  And yet the producers ditched one third of their trio. This was a huge risk! It was like the Beatles breaking up . . . except without the great music and probably nowhere near as important on a cultural level.

  And nobody blamed Yoko Ono.

  Well . . . hardly anybody.

  “Why?” you might ask—especially if you weren’t reading the trades during the spring/summer of 2001. “Why did they have to kill Prue?”

  As you might expect, several versions of the story are floating around. The official one reports a “mutual decision.” The more common story, and the particular curse of female colleagues, is that the gals just didn’t get along. Some sources say that Alyssa Milano, who plays younger sister Phoebe, issued the producers an ultimatum: her or Doherty. She has denied it. Some sources say that Doherty first asked to leave and was refused, but later was fired. Over the phone. One has to wonder how things would have been different if Milano herself hadn’t replaced Lori Rom in the pilot episode as the “youngest” Halliwell sister.

  In any case, the past is past—unless you have your own Book of Shadows and can try out one of those cool Reverse Time spells, although almost anyone well-versed in pop culture knows they rarely turn out well . . . except maybe for Marty McFly. The point is, we don’t really know the actresses and our interest in their career ups and downs could be seen as fairly tacky.

  But we knew Prue. We lost Prue. And the writers/producers were faced with some pretty dire choices.

  Think about how it could have gone. . . .

  SOLUTION 1

  Prue Just Leaves Town

  This solution has had mixed success with TV series in the past. Sometimes, the character leaves for a decent but annoying reason, like when Doug Ross quit County General—and, worse, his lover Carol!—after one of his worst days ever on ER. To his credit, George Clooney had given the series five years before leaving for what he’d already built into a successful movie career. And the show had been building his character’s dissatisfaction with authority from the start. But surely I wasn’t the only one yelling at the screen, “You’ve been up for days, threatened with a lawsuit, fired . . . get a good night’s sleep, then make a major life decision!” Annoying.

  Sometimes the reason is disgustingly contrived, like back on Cheers when Diane Chambers couldn’t marry Sam Malone because . . . she had to write a book instead? Me, I know plenty of novelists who are also married. But Shelley Long was determined to move on and, like Clooney, she’d given the series five years, so that was that. I don’t blame her. I blame Diane, and the writers. To write a book? Sheesh.

  Occasionally the departure actually makes sense, no matter how we protest the plot twist, like when Law & Order’s Detective Mike Logan lost his notorious temper, slugged a politician and got demoted to Staten Island so that Chris Noth could move on to sexier pastures, or when Sam Seaborn left the West Wing in order to keep a promise by running for state office, freeing Rob Lowe up for The Lyon’s Den and Dr. Vegas. (Rob, Rob, why must you hurt us so?)

  And sometimes characters just mysteriously vanish in a puff of misplaced continuity, like Richie Cunningham’s brother Chuck on Happy Days or Ellenor Frutt’s baby on The Practice.

  The problem for Charmed was that Prue would not have left. Remember, we’re talking the character, not the actress. Prue Halliwell was the oldest sister; she was the strongest witch. There was no way in hell the writers could have sold us on the idea that she suddenly decided to elope, or to pursue a new career off somewhere that didn’t have telephones or transatlantic flights. If she even tried it, surely her sisters would have assumed she was under an evil demon’s spell and done everything in their Book of Shadows to return her to her right mind.

  In a bad situation, this was one minor triumph for the show. They did not attempt to have Prue simply move away.

  SOLUTION 2

  Someone Else Can Play Prue

  I’m surprised that Charmed didn’t go this route. True, it’s become something of a self-referential joke, such as when the characters on Roseanne—including a new version of Becky—complained loudly about the way Bewitched swapped Darrins midstream. And it’s hard to pull off, because it strains our willing suspension of disbelief. After Richard Thomas left The Waltons, the writers made a mistake in trying to bring in a new John Boy, because not even the Baldwin sisters’ medicine could have kept his close-knit family, much less the audience, from noticing the difference. No amount of plastic surgery could explain the changes in the new Fallon Carrington Colby (who went from a Pamela Sue Martin to an Emma Samms) on Dynasty. And although Alias Smith and Jones’ Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry were under cover as Joshua Smith and Thaddeas Jones, old west outlaws didn’t have the power of disguise to convince us that a Heyes who used to look like the talented but tormented Pete Duel suddenly looked like narrator Roger Davis.

  But that said? Alias Smith and Jones supposedly took place in the American West, Dynasty in Denver and The Waltons in Virginia. In a supposedly ordinary West, Denver and Virginia. Charmed, on the other hand, is a show about magic. Yes, it’s set in San Francisco, but it’s a magical, overrun-with-demons San Francisco.

  With the kinds of powers the Charmed Ones had, the writers could have switched actors for Prue and made it marginally believable. Prue could have woken up one morning looking completely different, stared at herself in the mirror and murmured a classic Sam Beckett “Oh boy” from Quantum Leap. She could have switched bodies with someone else, like Buffy and Faith did for two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Xena and Callisto did on Xena: Warrior Princess. A new actress could have carried Prue around in her head like Dr. McCoy carried Spock throughout most of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock after the mind-meld in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

  And the thing is, they could have made this work. The Charmed Ones would have looked a little different, but they otherwise would have remained intact. This would have, in fact, been the easy way out. It would have left us with Prue, albeit a Prue who might not have lived up to the original.

  Which is the second triumph of how the show handled Doherty’s unfortunate absence. They didn’t take the easy route. They went with. . . .

  SOLUTION 3

  Prue Really Dies

  Mind you, I’m not a big fan of death within TV shows. In fact, I usually hate it. I’m one of those people who believes that we see more than enough death in our real lives without t
uning in and sitting through commercials in order to get an extra helping in our entertainment. I only tried one episode of CSI—its pilot with its “fooled you!” ending that killed the apparent lead—before rejecting it for just that reason and didn’t learn what a good show it was until three seasons later. Even without regularly watching NYPD Blue, I hated losing Jimmy Smits’ Detective Bobby Simone. And do not even get me started on the final episodes of Forever Knight and Xena, or the let’s-kill-Catherine episode of Beauty and the Beast (the series, people; the series).

  I mean—yes, the characters may not belong to the viewers. But the only reason the characters’ shows are produced is because viewers commit themselves enough to tune in week after week. This is how you reward their devotion?

  Really. Don’t get me started.

  And yet somehow, despite all that, Prue’s death worked. It worked on so many levels that what could have been Charmed’s biggest tragedy became Charmed’s greatest triumph. And why is that?

  It’s because the writers and producers remembered the audience. And they remembered the truth: that the characters are not the actors. Maybe they didn’t like Shannen Doherty; only she and they know for sure. But the love they felt for Prue was tangible.

  Here’s what they did that made Prue’s death work:

  GOOD THING 1

  It Was Significant

  It’s bad enough when characters die. But for the love of heaven, at least let them go out with style. I can think of a certain Enterprise security chief who wasn’t given that dignity on Star Trek: The Next Generation. (People will argue that a senseless death like Tasha Yar’s is “realistic,” but again I counter: TV isn’t about realism but verisimilitude. I don’t tune in for reality. Thanks anyway.) Then there was Paul McCrane’s Dr. Robert Romano on ER, who survived a special-episode amputation only to have a helicopter fall on him. Characters didn’t even learn of his death on-camera. Anticlimax, much?

  At least Prue died valiantly. She threw herself between a demon bolt and an innocent. It’s how she would have wanted it . . . other than the being dead part, that is.

  GOOD THING 2

  Other Characters Mourned Her

  Generally, when a character is killed off, writers use that opportunity to show us the resulting grief, usually at the graveside. The characters on 21 Jump Street looked appropriately grim as we learned via an expository eulogy that Captain Richard Jenko had been killed by a drunk driver (read: Frederic Forrest just didn’t work out). Johnny Depp and Michael DeLuise with clenched jaws, mmm! When ER’s Mark Greene finally died, even a few departed characters like Peter Benton showed up at the funeral. (Not, sadly, Doug Ross. And Doug would have been there.) But unless the funeral scene is the final shot of the episode, the episode usually then veers off into business-as-usual, and within a week the character is forgotten.

  Less time than that, if someone dies on Smallville.

  On Charmed, Prue got her mourning period. She died in the last episode of the third season. The first episode in the fourth season was all about her funeral, including the presence of a mysterious young woman whose name starts with a coincidental P. Two episodes later, despite the remaining Halliwells having learned they’ve got a half-sister named Paige, Piper was still furious enough at the loss of her sister to cause all kinds of problems. Okay, so that’s only three episodes, but it’s better than most television characters get, and besides, after that Cole started going evil again. Priorities are priorities.

  The sisters still haven’t forgotten Prue. Paige sometimes mourns her inability to ever live up to her dead older sister’s powerful reputation. Phoebe and Piper sometimes mention missing her. If the Powers That Be hadn’t so thoroughly burned bridges, I wouldn’t be surprised by a special guest spot via flashback or ghostly visitation, a la George Clooney’s Doug Ross doing a cameo on ER (I will always love him for that) or, more to the topic, Julian McMahon bringing Cole back, however briefly, to Charmed.

  If we haven’t forgotten Prue, it would suck for her sisters to have done so. They haven’t. Well played.

  GOOD THING 3

  They Didn’t Try to Replicate Her

  True, the producers did replace Prue. The remaining Halliwells found a long-lost half-sister of whom they’d been hitherto ignorant—a stretch, yes, but no more of a stretch than some of those clothes they wear, or the number of men they go through. But the character of Paige, competently played by Rose McGowan, is no carbon copy of Prue. Paige is the youngest, while Prue was the oldest. Perhaps because of this, Paige has a better sense of humor than Prue had. Paige is easygoing, while Prue was take-charge. And Paige has certain skills inherited from her Whitelighter father, which Prue did not. In other words, the writers brought in another sister to complete the triad, but they deliberately did not try to recreate the character of Prue when they did so.

  This is less common than you’d think. When the blond, smiling, tanned Farrah Fawcett left Charlie’s Angels, taking the character of Jill Munroe with her, who replaced her? The blond, smiling, tanned Cheryl Ladd, as Kris Munroe, Jill’s younger sister. When Suzanne Somers proved to be ahead of her time (that would be the time of Friends) by demanding too large a raise on Three’s Company, her character, Chrissy Snow, was replaced by—wait for it!—her cousin Cindy Snow, played by Jenilee Harrison doing a Suzanne Somers impression, right down to the snort. When the writers of The Andy Griffith Show decided to spin the popular character of Gomer Pyle off into his own show (Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.), who should show up to take his place but his cousin, Goober Pyle. Both brunettes. Both goofy. Both with thick accents.

  Too often it’s a case of second verse, pale imitation of the first.

  But Charmed dared to be different. If nothing else, Prue had black hair, while Paige is a redhead—most of the time.

  In other words, it could have been worse. Much, much worse. As long as characters are portrayed by actors (and who can tell what computer animation will bring), television shows like Charmed will face crises such as these. And when they do, they will have a choice. They can discard the characters as quickly and thoroughly as they discard the actors who played them. Or they can keep the viewers in mind—you remember, those people who help bring in ratings?—and remember that, imaginary or not, characters deserve respect. They aren’t just pawns to move around the playing field of a series. They are the reason we tune in. And a wrong step (such as Cindy Snow) is reason enough to tune out.

  As for the way the writers disposed of Cole . . .?

  That’s another essay.

  Evelyn Vaughn believes in the magic of stories. The author of a dozen published romance/adventure novels and as many fantasy short stories (written as Von Jocks), she is perhaps best known for her paranormal books with Silhouette Shadows and Silhouette Bombshell. As Yvonne Jocks, she edited two anthologies about witches for Berkley Books. When not weaving words, she teaches English at Tarrant County College SE in Arlington, Texas.

  Evelyn is an unapologetic TV addict. She’s still trying to figure out how to time travel or meet up with some of her favorite characters. Check out her Web site at www.evelynvaughn.com.

  THE ULTIMATE WITCH

  * * *

  ROBERT A. METZGER

  * * *

  Piper Halliwell isn’t just the levelheaded, bra-wearing, heir-bearing sister, Robert A. Metzger says. She’s also the one with the most power, real and potential. And the scientist in him can’t help building a better Piper—nuclear capability and all.

  MAGIC AND SCIENCE DON’T MIX.

  Most folks might believe that—but most scientists don’t.

  What is not often appreciated is that the goal of scientists is not in the deriving of new equations, the building of a better eight-sliced toaster or the discovery of a new species of an Amazonian tri-horned beetle. No. The goal of scientists is to perform magic. No one has articulated this better than Arthur C. Clarke, a scientist of great renown (he invented the concept of the geosynchronous satellite) as well as one of the major science
fiction writers of the twentieth century, having written 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke created three laws that distilled the core of how science and scientists work. They are:

  LAW 1: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

  LAW 2: The only possible way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

  LAW 3: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  So why should you care?

  You’re interested in the Halliwell sisters—in witches, Whitelighters, demons and the various powers they wield. Digging into the nuances of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws is not why you’re reading this book about the Charmed Ones. But there is a connection.

  Science can show us how to build a better witch.

  And when we’re talking about better, we’re talking about powers. Might it be possible to take a look at what powers the Charmed Ones possess, analyze them from the perspective of a scientist and then come up with a better witch? I think so. Let’s first take a look at just what powers the witches of Charmed manifest:

  PRUE: Telekinesis and Astral Projection

  PIPER: Molecular Inhibition and Molecular Combustion

  PHOEBE: Premonitions and Levitation

  PAIGE: Orbing and Telekinetic Orbing

  All these powers are certainly magical and quite complementary (the better to fight demons with). However, there is one witch whose powers have a decided physics bent to them—still magical of course, but powers that your average physicist-on-the-street might take a moment to consider. That witch is Piper, whose powers center around the manipulation of molecules. Scientists just love molecules, having spent centuries in not only figuring out just what they are, but also in figuring out how to control them and how to harness their powers. So Piper will be the template upon which we’ll build a better witch through science.