I think they are very similar looking.
I forgot to mention that the soundtrack is pretty great!
Or (very minor spoilers)
that particular plot thread could just fizzle out; they never really do anything with the book club. I think there are a few bits of plot that don’t seem to go anywhere.
I’m not clear on what exactly signing the Book of the Beast is supposed to do. It felt in the beginning like it was a choice to be a witch or be mortal, but come her 16th birthday she’s still a witch. If signing the book turns you evil, how do you explain Hilda? Or 90% of Zelda, for that matter.
Kiernan Shipka and Melissa Joan Hart, not as much IMHO. But Kiernan Shipka and Emma Watson could be sisters.
Just a couple of episodes in and I’m mildly enjoying it. My understanding from a couple of reviews is that it gets a bit more intense in the second half. I’m intrigued at just how dark it is for an ostensibly teen-oriented show. Satan and satanism, offhand references to cannibalism and blood sacrifice, the two sisters’ quaint way of resolving personal differences ;). It definitely helps ratchet up the tension a tad.
I think KS is painfully cute. And a much better actor than LHC.
I don’t think it turns you evil - I think it turns you into a slave/servant. Even Prudence said it - you trade freedom for power. Now, for many, that may not have any real impact on their lives. Until Satan commands you kill your firstborn or whatnot.
Now, I think it can go two ways. Firstly, getting more power for signing the book. There was some indication of that, I thought. Secondly, that it’s a con. Power is inborn and you don’t actually have to make a deal with Satan to have/keep it, but he’s made them all think they had to.
There’s also the element of peer pressure, power in numbers, protection from having a coven, but my impression was that was more social that a concrete reality in the series.
In comic, Sabrina was told if she didn’t choose the way of the witch, her powers would slowly fade and she’d begin to age as a mortal. Don’t know if that’s true, because I honestly can’t remember if I got to the actual birthday/baptism or not. Only skimmed a little. And Satan didn’t even appear or consent to the marriage between Sabrina’s parents - that was Sabrina’s dad conning his own congregation.
The entire way the series treats the Church of Night (from a meta/narrative perspective, not in-universe) is interesting. At times much of the language and demands very much mirror real-world religions - albeit with a terrible “Golden Rule.” Perhaps I’m projecting, but it seemed like it was a bit on-point and critical of at least certain Abrahamic religions (can’t say for non-Abrahamic ones). Other times, the opposite. Such as the saved-by-baptismal certificate and the seeming truth of Limbo
This isn’t terribly uncommon, especially lately. Riverdale, as already mentioned, does it. Gotham does it. Netflix’s Series of Unfortunate Events adaptation does it. Archer did it up until the Dreamland season. It was one of the hallmarks of the DCAU (especially Batman: TAS, but Superman and Justice League had elements, too). Honestly, at this point I’ve followed so many shows that do it that I hardly notice. TV Tropes has a page on it, but the examples also cover ‘it’s in the future, but never stated just how long’.
Still only on the second episode, but I’m enjoying it. Like this version of Salem, particularly (though I wish they’d dealt with Kiernan Shipka’s cat allergy by giving him more goblin-form scenes, rather than giving him fewer scenes).
We’re really liking it. We’ve gotten through 5 episodes so far.
We were talking about the weird contradictions in the witches: devotion to Satan but kindness to others, and so on. I think it comes back to the concept of Free Will that Sabrina stumbled against. It was held up as a major tenet of their faith but, as mentioned above, the reverse is true. A witch or warlock isn’t necessarily devoted to bad acts, but they are bound to them if required to do so by the Church.
I wonder if
A witch’s power is present whether or not she joins the church, but certain other benefits are contingent on membership, such as immortality. I am also puzzled by the fact that Hilda aged during the trial, but is not aging during her excommunication.
One of the cable channels is currently showing a marathon of the 1996-2003 version with Melissa Joan Hart. It’s much lighter fare certainly, and it’s going to be hard for me to have anyone to replace Hart in the title role. That version also had great stunt casting like Penn & Teller, and they just showed the episode with Drew Carey.
I haven’t seen many of the new episodes yet, but I really dislike the dark lighting and general griminess (and grimness).
I’m enjoying it, though I was hoping it would be a little more like the new comic (which was much darker than this show, and a lot more Lovecraftian).
Loving Michelle Gomez chewing up the scenery as Madame Satan!
Not loving that a genuine witch can’t pronounce “Samhain” properly. That’s a bit of basic research somebody definitely should have done.
I think if I stop trying to expect the show to conform to the comic, I’ll enjoy it even more.
Well … to be fair, there’s really nothing particularly Celtic about the witch community in the show, and no particular reason they should be informed – or care much about – the particulars of lenition in Irish pronunciation. It’s at least as odd (to me) that they would be calling something Samhain in the first place.
Yeah, but Samhain is a very witchy holiday. Calling it “Sam Hain” is just…weird.
I’m about halfway through and my enjoyment of this series has increased again. Just got through the sleep demon episode which ended on a pretty good cliffhanger.
The “original Sabrina”?
Get off my lawn.
Chilling copyright infringement of Sabrina. (I definitely noticed that the statue was virtually identical when I watched.)
BTW, beyond the statue theft (which, if the sculpture in The Devil’s Advocate is any precedent, will not go well for Netflix) you may not be aware that you are supposed to think that the series is horribly, horribly racist.
I’m really enjoying the show so far I’m on the 9th episode. Did anyone catch that the town doctor is Dr. Phibes as in the Vincent Price character from the 1970 movies.
I stopped reading that article and not just because of the spoliers.
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Up to episode 4…
Same…ish. Only a little confused, actually, but quite disappointed.
For some reason I found Trial hard to watch. Had to pause it repeatedly. It was good, just weirdly hard to watch straight.
Witch Academy was easier to watch. Although it left me disappointed with it not running with an apparent reference a bit harder, again…the watchacallit Configuration being so named had me imagining a puzzlebox a la Hellraiser, not…a giant Everlasting Gobstopper. (Didn’t want them to lean into it TOO hard, and I liked what it actually did…I was just disappointed in the aesthetic choice.)
I don’t think the look that alike front on, but their profiles are amazingly similar…and on that note…
Similar profile aside, Shipka is far more attractive than Hart. Not that Hart wasn’t a lovely young woman, just…blandly so. Shipka is, if you will forgive the use of the very on the nose term…cute as hell.
I’m on episode 7, so I’m not yet ready to read this thread, but o wanted to say that I’m happy with Sabrina’s pronunciation of “an endangered species”—[spiʃiz] instead of [spiʃi], [spisiz], or [ʃpiʃiz].