Xena and Buffy are still considered the best television shows with female leads but why is Charmed sort of forgotten outside the internet?
Did the "Shannen Doherty vs. Everyone" drama ruin it's impact? Or did it being a poor-man's Buffy stop that?
Buffy was simply a better show. It also came first and many feel Charmed was sort of a rip-off. Xena was low budget and not well written, but has a strong fanbase among the LGBT crowd and dorky fanboys who are hot for physically strong women.
shareNever watched Xena but it had kitsch appeal.
Buffy was fun, witty dialogue, quirky characters, had an old horror movie vibe to it.
Charmed seemed to be play it more mainstream which I think is why it doesn't have that coolness to it or legacy. Charmed felt like it was a soap opera for middle aged women.
Xena was low budget and the scripts were all over the place. I heard they did musical episodes and all sorts. I watched some of the episodes, but not consistently. I think it's longevity came partly from the LGBT fanbase, but there's actually an interview with, I think, one of the showrunners, that is still out there, saying that the LGBT fanbase was actually a very small minority of the viewers, like 100 000 or so (this is just my memory talking so don't quote me on it). So the Xena popularity didn't solely come from the LGBT connection. I think a strength of Xena was that its theme (what price would you pay for redemption, and that violence comes with a cost, even when used for good) was very relatable to boys, who make up the majority of action-adventure viewers. The theme was really gender-neutral even though Xena was marketed on the basis of her female action hero cred. After Xena came a slew of female-led action adventure tv shows (some I liked, some not as much) but I think they missed the mark in being targeted thematically to girls rather than a more gender neutral way. I just don't think that genre can succeed without capturing the loyalty of the boy audience.
Buffy was on the theme of high school, even though it was about the undead (high school is hell, basically). Joss Whedon is amazing at dialogue, but it seems to be agreed that the genius of the metaphor of high school as hell and sex as death is what made Buffy so captivating to teen and young adult males and females. I didn't just make this up, by the way; I started reading books about how tv shows are written (really fun to read about actually) and Buffy comes up frequently as an example of how you can make a show for young people but have a really strong theme that drives longevity and loyalty and just really interesting tv.
I can't remember the theme of Charmed, and, well there's probably a reason for that...
When I presented this question elsewhere, somebody laid the blame on Brad Kern taking over from Constance Burge. Basically, Kern made Charmed (especially after Shannen Doherty left) into a fluffy female sex object show. It was no longer a show based on the sisters after he got in charge to put things into perspective. It was really about displaying the female leads body's more, mainly Alyssa Milano, to draw in horny male viewers. So we got episodes where Phoebe rides a horse naked downtown, Phoebe in a genie outfit, Phoebe in a mermaid outfit, and the superhero costume episode where the females are in tight outfits.
https://www.reddit.com/r/charmed/comments/bf0b0y/should_fans_blame_brad_kern_for_the_decline_of/
https://thecharmedcafe.proboards.com/thread/11472/fans-hold-constance-burge-pedestal
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/360090/charmed-mega-spoilers
https://forums.primetimer.com/topic/24711-unpopular-opinions/page/5/
https://thecharmedcafe.proboards.com/thread/982/brad-kern-good-bad
One comment that I read online is that Charmed was presumably (especially with Aaron Spelling involved) supposed to be like Charlie's Angels but with a supernatural twist. But after Shannen Doherty left/was fired the show dissolved into being Harry Potter meets Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
To put it in another way, when Shannen was there, Charmed was for the most part, a show about three sisters living in an alternate real world and navigating a combination of normal, real-life, real-women problems. The powers and stories showcased were often only there to highlight the issues going on between the sisters. But when Rose McGowan replaced Shannen come Season 4, Charmed started to treat their adult cast more like teen girls in a silly fantasy-based show, not specifically a witch/wicca-based show.
I never got the impression the show was about witchcraft and the supernatural anyway to be honest. It just never had the same dark vibe that Buffy had. It was always fluffy. I did notice when Rose entered the show that she tried rather hard to push her sexuality (or the powers that be persuaded her to) but she was always too scrawny for my tastes. Milano remained the only good looking woman on the show for me.
So yeah, I was never their target demographic but even Milano in sexy outfits will only interest me for so long. I certainly didn't need to tune in to see her given she has done nudity in movies like Poison Ivy.
Long story short, the whole "sex sells" adage isn't what it is cracked up to be. Especially in the age of the internet.
I agree that shows do themselves a disservice when they rely on undressing the female characters to retain viewers. I don't think male audiences are willing to sit through a boring show for the hope of 5 minutes of a good-looking actress showing some skin. I think female audiences become really offended when a female-oriented show begins to use its female characters in a way that seems to make them into viewable objects. So that strategy is a losing one on both sides. Not that shows can't leverage the good looks of the actors and actresses, I think they just have to be smart about it. Ultimately, I think audience interest still comes down to interesting characters around whom the writers can build surprising plots.
I think fluffiness can work but really good comedy writers are needed to make it work. Otherwise it can get sappy.
Tastes differ of course but the only hot one anyway was Phoebe. I remember being grossed out by Paige's skinny pale legs lol
They just tried so hard to make it sexy and the later brought in the young blonde who played superhero to try and sex it up some more. It was stupid on many levels.
Chemistry between the cast and comedy is essential, Buffy is a great example, you really believe what is happening that they are all friends. A lot of shows it's like the cast are just acting, waiting to deliver their lines etc.
lol I forgot which was which. Female here so didn't pay attention to all that and I stopped watching before Shannon Doherty left.
shareI think Buffy also benefitted from having Joss Whedon. Some people just have a green thumb for this kind of thing.
shareI've seen a few of the early eps in the last couple of days actually and am surprised at how revealing some of the outfits are. One ep you can see Shannon's nipples the shape and the actual colour right through her top, she does not like wearing bras in this show!
Although it's probably natural to think that the women were being pressured into dressing that way, I somehow doubt it as Holly Marie tends to be dowdy most of the time. I think the women themselves were hoping to progress their careers and thought being slutty would do it.
Buffy and Xena were honestly vastly superior shows.
shareI prefer Charmed out of the 3 mostly due to the house, the location, and the witchery in general. I never really noticed about Xena. But I do love Buffy as well. And it definitely has better production values which is why I think it is a stronger show.
I never really care what the masses like because it's really all about me :D
I quite liked the mythology of the witchery on Charmed. It's important to me that a fantasy show have a good mythology that I can really sink my teeth into. What about the location was appealing to you? I did not watch Buffy that much, as I didn't go through a similar kind of high school and couldn't relate. My kids are in high school here so Buffy might make more sense to me now. I liked Spike though!
shareBuffy was authentic. Joss Whedon being an actual fan of the genre and creator made something special, also before the supernatural and vampires became popular again as well. The characters were also lifelike despite the theme.
Charmed was riding on the bandwagon and felt more like a Hallmark/Harlequin romance.
Despite both shows having a girl power thing to them, I feel that Buffy was enjoyable for males and females whereas Charmed was more of a chick show.
Yeah I definitely think Charmed was a chick show. I like shows with female leads (as a female myself) but I think the "girl power" story strategy has been done in a pandering way in many cases. As a result, I find it often no more interesting than the "heroic male looking into the distance as he contemplates his heroic choices" storyline (sorry I did not come up with a catchy term for that, if you can think up one I will be happy to use it). For some reason Buffy seemed to avoid that?
The irony is when it comes to witchcraft or Wicca it is all about nature and energy. A proper coven has male and females because you want that balance, Ying and Yang if you want the Eastern version. By just having females you have half the potential power.
So that always strikes me as odd when it comes to these shows and films about witches and girl power.
It is often done in a pandering way, I agree. I used to watch the show Vikings but among other things so many petite Shield Maidens kicking huge men's butts in hand to hand combat was just too much.
Towards the end of Buffy they do ramp up the girl power a little more, I think if it continued it might have been nauseating as well. It just started at a time when the world was a saner place!
I know what you mean although I don't have a better term either. I get bored with perfect characters and I find that when it comes to female characters now, they all have to be perfect.
On a different note, I think Charmed lacked quirky characters too. The sisters were all much the same, the White Lighter even more ordinary. In Buffy you had Giles the straightlaced librarian trying to keep up, you had Willow the nerdy witch to be, Xander one of the few in the cast who had no special/super abilities at all, Angel and Spike, Drusilla.
You had all of those personalities and more thrown into the mix. Charmed you had the three.
Yes I agree the Shield Maidens on Vikings was pretty silly. It's one thing in a fantasy like Buffy or Xena, where we are starting with the assumption that magic is real. But in the setting of Vikings, although the Vikings themselves may have believed in magic, the viewer is expected to watch it from the understanding that magic isn't real and the Vikings had to contend with all the limitations of nature including the fact that their homeland had very long winters and was very difficult to farm. So to break that sense of reality by having small women able to defeat much larger men, does not really comport with the internal logic of the show.
shareXena and Buffy were better shows.
shareFor me personally, Charmed was too soapy. It had a great premise--sister witches battling forces of evil while simultaneously trying to have lives--and some great episodes, don't get me wrong, especially in the first couple of seasons. But there was SO MUCH focus on the sisters' relationships, to the point where I felt the magic and evil-fighting were peripheral, and unlike Xena and Buffy, where the characters were flawed--and could irritate me sometimes--but still easy to empathize with and root for, the Charmed sisters steadily became more and more insufferable over the course of the show.
shareMales, Males are all over Buffy and Xena not enough boobs showing in Charmed for the male audience.
shareI watched all three shows at the time, as my young children were very much into them. Charmed felt more 'soapy' to me than the other two. I guess all three did their bit of 'relationship drama', but Buffy did it a hundred times better. As for Xena, yep, I unashamedly enjoyed watching Lucy Lawless in leather, kicking ass.
shareCharmed was decidedly aimed at the female audience, and had a very poor male audience turn out
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