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Post by Sadrick on Aug 17, 2015 14:00:11 GMT -5
And another evil British character. Did Kern have an ancestor he worships killed in the Revolution of the War Of 1812? I know not very good for us Brits hey and I'm British. If it makes you feel any better the show's had some Australian-born antagonists with Cole and the Dragon Warlock. They've even had Israeli and South African actors play villains at one point or another. Piper: Paige, it's not your first day as a witch. It's just... We're running out of options. You saw the news. I think it's time we go to plan B.
Paige: I think getting rid of him would be a big mistake.
Piper: So would letting an innocent die. Look, if you're not gonna trust yourself, at least trust me because it's certainly not my first day.
Oh trust me Piper, we’re all painfully aware that it’s not your first day... as far as I’m concerned, that Piper died a long time ago. She was compassionate and refused to give up when someone needed help. The whiny, self-centred, self-pitying shrew that stands before us now, sure as hell isn’t THAT Piper! To be fair, her sisters were giving up on innocents whom they designated as "unsaveable" way back in Season 2 since Dr Williamson when he proved to be too inconvenient for saving. It's in spite of the fact that Piper is partially responsible for his death when she couldn't bother to hear him out as he begged her for help over the phone. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2015 14:18:33 GMT -5
Fair point, although I don't really hold that phone call against her, since as far as she knew, he was just desperate to run more tests on her. Perhaps she should have heard him out, but I can understand why she didn't. I generally consider season 1 Piper an entirely different person, even to her season 2 self... but the way she reacted to Prue and Phoebe before he died and the way she was after- that really was a different Piper to me. She was my favourite character, which is why it saddens me so much. Plus, regarding the sisters generally... not condoning it either way... but I do think it's one thing giving up at a certain point when they've at least tried. They did give up at times in early seasons, but the amount they'd do for an innocent before getting to that point would usually go a long way. Far beyond what they were usually willing to do in later years (some times nothing). But that was the direction the show went I guess. :/ I think Soul Survivor sums it up rather well- Previously, protecting the innocents would be the main mission. Whereas here, Piper and Phoebe are willing to let countless innocents burn for eternity to get one demon.  |
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Post by adzpower on Aug 17, 2015 15:06:48 GMT -5
Your post just reminded me how much I used to adore Piper, seasons 1-3 for her were amazing, so likeable, so empathic and just such a lovely, humorous, kind lady.
Fast forward to season 6+, we have a completely different character, I like to rename this woman Polly, the evil twin sister of Piper that Patty hid away, she broke free from the nexus, killed Piper and assumed her identity.
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Esmeralda
Charmed
S2 "What If...?"
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Post by Esmeralda on Aug 17, 2015 15:11:58 GMT -5
Your post just reminded me how much I used to adore Piper, seasons 1-3 for her were amazing, so likeable, so empathic and just such a lovely, humorous, kind lady. Fast forward to season 6+, we have a completely different character, I like to rename this woman Polly, the evil twin sister of Piper that Patty hid away, she broke free from the nexus, killed Piper and assumed her identity. ROFL! That's the best explanation for the change in Piper (well, outside of me believing that S4-8 is the alternate-universe spin-off, of course.  ) I've ever read! Great job! |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2015 16:17:29 GMT -5
Yeah I could definitely go with that theory haha.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2015 17:14:05 GMT -5
I was talking of the characters, not the actors. Julian McMahon is Australian, yes, but Cole Turner is American. Quite a few Brits can do good American accents, Hugh Laurie comes to mind here. Watching House, you can't tell he's British.
However, it seems that EVERY British character that appeared on Charmed was a bad guy. As I have said, Kern, the Revolution and the War Of 1812 were two centuries or more ago. Get over them, already.
Reminds me of those old 60's spy shows, where every character that had an East European accent as an evil Commie out to destroy the good old USA.
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Post by lilchi7212 on Aug 17, 2015 17:55:51 GMT -5
I was talking of the characters, not the actors. Julian McMahon is Australian, yes, but Cole Turner is American. Quite a few Brits can do good American accents, Hugh Laurie comes to mind here. Watching House, you can't tell he's British. However, it seems that EVERY British character that appeared on Charmed was a bad guy. As I have said, Kern, the Revolution and the War Of 1812 were two centuries or more ago. Get over them, already. Reminds me of those old 60's spy shows, where every character that had an East European accent as an evil Commie out to destroy the good old USA. You see that commercial for Jaguar where they had all British actors who played bad guys in movies? Face it Britts make better bad guys. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2015 18:35:51 GMT -5
Is it just me, or does that sound almost racist. Just replace the word "Brits" with Jews or blacks, and you'll see what I mean.
Now, I know you didn't mean to make it sound that way, however, it does sound that way.
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Post by Melinda Halliwell on Aug 18, 2015 2:02:03 GMT -5
You see that commercial for Jaguar where they had all British actors who played bad guys in movies? I know the one you mean with Mark Strong, Tom Hiddleston and Sir Ben Kingsley in it. Yes those 3 do make very good convincing villains actually. Maybe it's something natural in us we have which gives British actors the inert ability to portray bad guys who knows although we do play good guys well also for e.g. take Bond. |
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Post by lilchi7212 on Aug 18, 2015 8:56:00 GMT -5
Is it just me, or does that sound almost racist. Just replace the word "Brits" with Jews or blacks, and you'll see what I mean. Now, I know you didn't mean to make it sound that way, however, it does sound that way. Nah it's not racism I think it's more a stereotype. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2015 11:32:47 GMT -5
He plays Loki in the Marvel movies, right?
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Post by Melinda Halliwell on Aug 18, 2015 12:56:48 GMT -5
Yes he does Tim.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2015 17:12:17 GMT -5
I thought so. He does a good Loki.
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Post by Darkhorse Christian on Aug 20, 2015 21:50:16 GMT -5
I think it's the accent. It seems more sophisticated to Americans, so by Hollywood logic it's easier for you guys to come across as haughty and distant as would befit a heel. It is a stereotype, and personally I think cool snarky observer would be a better stock role for Brits than calculating villain, but hey. Pick your battles, right?
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Post by Chrisaholic on Aug 21, 2015 12:11:54 GMT -5
To "Carpe Demon": First of all, I'm not a Billy Zane fan like BK! Otherwise, I'd have accepted any other actor but that's not my choice.  Anyway, the premise and storyline was good but the transformation into a great episode failed in my eyes. All sisters needed a good kick in their arse!! But hey, saving Innocents and having a family is your life. Enjoy it!! |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2015 11:49:30 GMT -5
Phoebe and Drake’s First Date
A.k.a- Show Ghouls
We open with Paige giving someone a tour of Notwarts. Drake gets blown out of his classroom. Apparently he’s teaching “advanced magical musical compositions”... um yeah, I don’t know what that is and I don’t know what happened to him teaching literature, but whatever. Also he’s got a troll in there for some reason; an actual troll this time, not the tiny gremlin things from season 3 (not that we see it anyway).
We see a cop going all kinds of bat s**t with a gun in the middle of the WB lot. He’s screaming about people burning in a fire and nobody listening to him. We hear screams echoing from underground; pretty creepy actually, I like these sort of stories.
Piper: Extra room for my... Pattini?
Leo: (thinks) Pattini.
Piper: Shoes.
Um no, pattini means skates! Scarpe would be shoes. How about you writers just stick with the one language, okay, that’s enough of a challenge on its own I’m sure.
Anyway Piper and Leo are supposedly taking the kids on a round the world vacation and they’re starting with Italy. Leo clearly doesn’t want to go and to be honest I can’t imagine a vacation with Piper feels like much of a vacation at all... so I hear ya.
Phoebe: I know, but Elise, why can't we just do the interview here? You know, kind of like an Ask Phoebe at home thing.
What is it with this woman? When she has a day off and they don’t want her in the office, they can’t get rid of her! When they need her to do something, it’s like pulling teeth trying to get her to go to work!
Paige: Yeah, well, at least you're not wasting all your time at Magic School.
Oh poor, poor Paige, she has a job. She’s really catching up to her older siblings with the moaning.
Drake explains all about lost souls to Phoebe and Paige using a book that illustrates it for them.
Drake: Interview shminterview. How does an interview weigh in against the fate of an innocent? And if we are to help, your premonition skills could prove essential.
Yes, thank you, thank you Drake. I mean that last bit about her premonitions isn’t gonna happen, but the first bit, YES!
Phoebe and Drake use a spell to astral to the club in the past and the spell very helpfully dresses them up in the appropriate attire.
We establish that nobody around remembers except for Count Moustachcular...though I’m still not sure how George remembers (oh that’s the guy that the cop is possessed by, didn’t mention that) and nobody asks, so whatever.
They talk about fan dancing. Let’s all just be thankful that Phoebe didn’t do one...had Kern not been busy spotlighting Billy Zane, I daresay she would have!
The fire begins and George pops out of the cops body and back into the club just as Phoebe and Drake pop out.
Here’s the exposition part. Count Moustachcular made a deal with a demon in order to keep himself out of purgatory.
They keep showing outside shots of the hospital that I’m pretty sure are from the first two seasons... there’s a very unsubtle difference in the picture quality.
Leo defaces the BOS, writing "tips for future whitelighters".
They look for the demon and he’s called Sargon “Traders of souls, preys on the afterlife.” But according to Piper, they vanquished him already. From that description, I thought of the guy from “Soul Survivor”, but then remembered his name was Zahn and he didn’t really prey on souls, just traded them. Hmm.
Paige covers for Phoebe at the Vogue shoot by glamouring. Alyssa pretty much does the exact same idiot child performance that she did in “Enter the Demon”. So all the excuses I made for her back in season 4...hereby nullified.
Piper states that they vanquished this Sargon fellow five years ago which would put it around season 2 right? I guess they must have vanquished him off-screen, because the only demon I can think of that’s even close to the description is Masselin and nobody’s been swallowed yet.
Phoebe: There's nobody at that centre table.
Count Roget: Your demon is long gone. In fact, he left 106 years ago. Right after we made the deal. Long before the fire.
(Phoebe and Drake look shocked)
Um, well duh, lugheads! If you vanquished him in your timeline, how could he still be trapped there?
Count Moustachcular shoots Drake and then hijacks his body as the fire gets worse.
It takes Piper and Leo far too long to work out that Drake is not Drake despite the fact that he’s acting weird, doesn’t care about Phoebe and is speaking in an English accent. He shimmers away just before Leo tries to fry him.
(Leo puts up his hands. Piper stops him.)
Piper: No, don't. You're in enough trouble already with... (Count Roget/Drake shimmers out.) The Elders.
Oh please. I seriously doubt The Elders would give the tiniest of f’s about Leo frying Drake.
Phoebe uses tarot cards and an incantation from a fortune teller’s book to poof herself back to her body. That’s one handy tarot card deck!
Oh the incantation by the way: “Vita brevis Abraxas!” ...Woah, did she just invoke the demon from the season 2 premiere?
Piper: Wait a minute. What's my middle name?
Phoebe: Uh, Surly?
I remember when this aired and the internet was ablaze with fans screaming “Oh my God, Piper’s middle name is Shirley!!! It’s canon now.”
They depossess Drake with a potion and Count Moustachcular is carried away by a huge “Ghost” rip off, after which all the good souls are freed.
We have what I’ll admit is a pretty cute Piper and Leo moment at P3; but it would be a lot nicer if I bought what they were saying for a second-
Piper: I think from now on I'm gonna stop trying to control every little moment. The best ones kinda sneak up on you anyway.
Drake sings all suave and Phoebe swoons.
Well, I rather enjoyed that one actually.
Next up, the 150th episode. Cole is back (sort of) and Drake bites the dust.
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Post by Astral Vision on Aug 22, 2015 13:10:47 GMT -5
Great review as always. The fact that Paige got so little mention in that review compared to Piper and Phoebe shows just how little she featured in that episode. I know she had the Phoebe's interview subplot, but even then Alyssa was more part of that subplot than Rose.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2015 13:53:59 GMT -5
Thank you  Very true. I think we're coming up to the point where they have her give up her job at Notwarts too; so that she can, I dunno... hang around aimlessly some more? The more I watch the later seasons, the more I'm baffled that nobody said "Hey, maybe Paige should get back to her social work roots at this point". She really does just flitter around and flip flop from episode to episode. It's a long while since I watched season 5, but if memory serves, she quit so that she could catch up with witchcraft and be at her sisters' level of experience. She's done that by now for sure and I even recall her boss saying that they'd have her back if ever she wanted. Just such wasted potential. |
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Post by lilchi7212 on Aug 22, 2015 14:17:58 GMT -5
Thank you Very true. I think we're coming up to the point where they have her give up her job at Notwarts too; so that she can, I dunno... hang around aimlessly some more? The more I watch the later seasons, the more I'm baffled that nobody said "Hey, maybe Paige should get back to her social work roots at this point". She really does just flitter around and flip flop from episode to episode. It's a long while since I watched season 5, but if memory serves, she quit so that she could catch up with witchcraft and be at her sisters' level of experience. She's done that by now for sure and I even recall her boss saying that they'd have her back if ever she wanted. Just such wasted potential. But she was trying to go and get her job as Social Worker back in season 8 but her dad pops back up after how many years of not seeing him needed her help. |
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Post by Melinda Halliwell on Aug 22, 2015 15:50:12 GMT -5
But she was trying to go and get her job as Social Worker back in season 8 but her dad pops back up after how many years of not seeing him needed her help. And she could've done something in between then also. Even when she quit her job season 5 which was pointless by the way Paige did nothing then which would've been alright had she used what she was learning as a full time witch and saved innocents on a regular basis. |
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) I've ever read! Great job!
Anyway, the premise and storyline was good but the transformation into a great episode failed in my eyes. All sisters needed a good kick in their arse!! But hey, saving Innocents and having a family is your life. Enjoy it!!
