Credit: Charmed
Charmed is officially over.
On October 7, 1998, Constance M. Burge and Aaron Spelling created and produced one of the most successful shows on the now defunct WB network, Charmed, starring Shannen Doherty as Prue, Holly Marie Combs as Piper, and Alyssa Milano as Phoebe, which was about three witches who protected innocent lives from supernatural entities such as demons and warlocks. The series ran for eight seasons, and though it wasn’t an Emmy favorite like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad, audiences clearly loved the series due to the high viewership. Even after the show went off the air in 2006, the original Charmed series was the most binged watched show on Netflix back in 2012. Naturally, it makes sense why executives rebooted the Charmed series as it was a notable intellectual property.
The reboot came in with solid reviews, but the new version was notably feminist with loose ties to the original series. In a day and age where there’s 100’s of good to amazing shows, being decent simply wasn’t enough as viewers didn’t really give the CW series much attention. 850,000 viewership was the average of the first season, according to the Nielson ratings. The show was renewed; however, the viewership count went down as seasons passed. The third season premiere garnered a total of 465,000 viewers, a huge drop from the 850,000 averages of the first season. As previously stated, it was a wise business decision to try and capitalize on the intellectual property, but it became clear that audiences just weren’t invested in the reboot. Still, CW kept the series around until the leadership changed, and Warner Bros. Discovery made some shocking announcements in the weeks following David Zaslav taking over as President of Warner Bros. Discovery. Zaslav went on a canceling spree with numerous shows on the CW network.
Credit: Charmed
4400, Dynasty, Naomi, Roswell, New Mexico, In the Dark, Batwoman, Legends of Tomorrow, and Legacies were all scrapped along with Charmed. Why? Well, it could be as simple as the ratings didn’t hold up well enough for Charmed; however, shows like Legends of Tomorrow were a solid return for the network. Mark Pedowitz spoke to Deadline about the shocking cancellation, and The CW Boss revealed that it was time for transition, “I realize the pattern was different from what we have done in years past so I can see why it has come as a bit of a shock to you and the fans. None of these were easy decisions, we had long conversations with our studios and parent companies, and everyone recognized this was time of transition for The CW. Unfortunately, some difficult financial and strategic decisions needed to be made at every level and despite some rumors out there, content was a never factor in deciding not to move forward with the shows,” he explained on The CW’s Pre-Upfronts call.
What this means is anyone’s guess, though it does sound as if the channel would be shifting its focus to a different demographic. Pedowitz also stated that he’d done his best to try and give a long-running series a proper ending, so he informed creators to treat their finales as if they could be a series finale, “We had an idea early on, which shows could be bubble shows. We did not know 100% what would happen, so we tried to encourage all of these producers to treat their finale as if it could be a series finale. We wanted to do the right thing for the series and for the fans. Ultimately, the producers are stewards of their own creative vision. Unfortunately, it’s the fans that lose out by these decisions.”
Credit: Charmed
It’s definitely a heartbreaking thing for fans as the potential for a crossover with the original stars is dead. The season four finale seemed to tease that direction as Mel (Melonie Diaz), Maggie (Sarah Jeffery), and Kaela (Lucy Barrett) went through a portal to Halliwell Manor, which is the home of Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and Paige of the original series. There’s no guarantee that Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano, and Rose McGowan were set to reprise their roles in the fifth season but leaving fans on such an intriguing cliffhanger will surely be a disappointment. While it’s possible that the series may pop up on another network, there’s been no word on producers shopping the show to a different station. The Charmed reboot is currently streaming for the past four seasons on Netflix, which has previously saved shows like Lucifer, Arrested Development, and Manifest; however, there hasn’t been any buzz around Charmed getting such luck.
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