Charmed Fans Weigh In On The Reboot's New Suite Of Powers
In this culture of rebooting any form of nostalgia, "Charmed" seemed like a no-brainer. The original series about three magical witches premiered in 1998 after successes like "The Craft." After the death of their grandmother, Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) reunite to claim their birthright of being the most powerful witches in the world.
Only 12 years after the series ended, The CW rebooted "Charmed," this time in the Vera family. Many things connect the two series, despite the different families. One of the biggest is the powers that the sisters all possess. Macy (Madeleine Mantock), Mel (Melonie Diaz), and Maggie (Sarah Jeffery) take after their counterparts in almost an exact match. Macy has Prue's telekinesis while Mel wields the power to stop time, like Piper. Maggie is the only one that differs slightly. Instead of Phoebe's premonitions, she is an empath, though that is an ability that Phoebe develops later on. However, this all changes in Season 2 when the Vera sisters are stripped of their powers. After a season of trying to regain what they lost, they finally regain their powers, only to find their abilities have changed in interesting ways.
Mel's powers caused some confusion
As in the original series, the sisters' powers undergo a course of evolution. Even in the first season, Macy, Mel, and Maggie start with one power that develops quickly into multiple abilities. But after their auras were stripped in Season 2, they were powerless. Only after finding the black amber were they able to regain their abilities. And though this was a relief, many fans on Reddit noticed how different the new powers were. Almost too different.
"Did [Mel] go from being a time witch to being the molecule one?" asked Redditor u/BBQ2018, referring to her previous ability to time travel. After her powers were stripped, her new abilities revolved around freezing and melting objects. Though the Redditor loved how Mel's abilities seemed to mirror Piper's, it added some confusion to how she could develop them. Many Redditors seemed to agree that there was a lapse in logic in how her powers evolved. Especially since in the original series, some of the sisters only ever wielded two abilities. However, some fans had an answer to explain Mel's new magic.
"I interpreted her new molecular powers as being a subset of Time Magic (the kind that deals with speeding things up and slowing them down)," posted u/wanttomaster479. "Whereas her freezing in [S]eason 1 was the Temporal Aspect of her Time Magic."
The reboot changed powers too much for fans
The confusion over the sister's new powers did not stop with Mel. Maggie also eventually gains the power of foresight — basically just Phoebe's power of premonition. So why the musical chairs of changing abilities? There may never be a satisfying answer to that. "Charmed" has notoriously had many different showrunners over just four seasons of the series. Deadline reported that the most recent shake-up happened when Jeffrey Lieber, Joey Falco, and Nicki Renna took control following the end of "Charmed" Season 3. Fans noted that constant changes and many unanswered questions in "Charmed" were just some of the issues of the series.
"The reboot has a habit of picking things up and dropping them. They all lost their original powers. Some picked up really similar variations. Some totally new powers. Spells and power [of] three often given them really random and overpowered abilities," posted u/JMM85JMM. They went on to say: "I've really enjoyed some of these more recent episodes, the show has been on good form, but the inconsistency can really bug me at times." Many fans agree with this point and surmise that the creative forces behind the series may be to blame.
"There [are] just too many unexplained changes to really speculate what the showrunners plan to do with Mel because we had three [showrunners] completely change things up during their run," posted u/eyesofthebeast. Because of the Season 4 cancelation, we may never get the satisfaction of knowing.