Is "Centennial Charmed" overrated?

[Deleted]

Feb 2, 2016 0:31:47 GMT -5 ljones said:

They could have handled Cole's departure in a better way if the idiot writers had handled the end of the Source story arc with better writing.

And by the way, I probably would have enjoyed this series more if the Halliwell sisters had been bumped off and Cole had remained alive.

It's possible that the original version of the Source arc that was meant for early Season 5 was better-developed, especially since it wouldn't have been completely rushed and crammed into the latter part of Season 4. Alas, we'll never really know for sure, though.

And, yes, we all know you would've preferred a spinoff centered around Cole to Charmed itself. At this point, I only wish you had gotten your wish, if only because it would've removed Cole and the Phoebe/Cole relationship from Charmed (Yay!).

[ljones]

They removed Cole anyway. Which is probably why the series slowly began to go down the tubes. I thought Prue and Cole were the show's best characters.

[lilchi7212]

I don't get how the low ratings for the Paige from the Past episode had anything to do with why they ended up doing the whole Source story arc in four than 5?

[Deleted]

The reason was that, because of the low ratings, the possibility of getting cancelled was there.  Kern didn't want the series to end before the Big Bad, the Source, had been defeated for good.  Hence he had to wrap it up in Season Four.  He had good reason to think that the show would not be coming back.

Of course, the show was renewed, and they were screwed.  The main storyline of Charmed had effectively ended with Season Four. 

[lilchi7212]

Feb 4, 2016 11:38:46 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

The reason was that, because of the low ratings, the possibility of getting cancelled was there.  Kern didn't want the series to end before the Big Bad, the Source, had been defeated for good.  Hence he had to wrap it up in Season Four.  He had good reason to think that the show would not be coming back.

Of course, the show was renewed, and they were screwed.  The main storyline of Charmed had effectively ended with Season Four. 

Just b/c of one lousy rating he had to change it up?

[BookShelfy91]

I don't mind some of season 5, although admittedly there are episodes like this that do annoy me a lot. There just hardly seems a point to Cole's character in this season? Just seems like they're dragging it out...


Shelfy

[jdpm1991]

So the first half with A Paige from the Past was the original arc then the 2nd arc after Lost and Bound were all a rewrite?

[Deleted]

Yeah, that's it.  You see, the Phoebe Queen Of the Underworld story arc was originally meant to take place at the start of Season Four.  However, when Shannen got fired, they had to push it back because they needed to bring in a new sister, Paige.  So the first part of Season Four was used to introduce and set up Paige.

However, when they finally went back to that Queen Phoebe arc, they had to basically cross out "Prue" and put in "Paige" in the scripts.  Notice that Paige's distrust of Cole just seems to come right out of left field.  Clearly, the lines were originally written with Prue in mind (who's distrust of Cole was well known). 

If you ask me, they should have dropped that whole Queen of the Underworld arc when Shannen was fired and used the whole of Season Four to flesh out Paige. 

Sometimes when an actor leaves a show, story arcs have to be abandoned.  It happened when Charlie Sheen got canned from Two And A Half Men (the Charlie/Rose arc), it should have happened here.

[jdpm1991]

Feb 6, 2016 18:28:07 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

Yeah, that's it.  You see, the Phoebe Queen Of the Underworld story arc was originally meant to take place at the start of Season Four.  However, when Shannen got fired, they had to push it back because they needed to bring in a new sister, Paige.  So the first part of Season Four was used to introduce and set up Paige.

However, when they finally went back to that Queen Phoebe arc, they had to basically cross out "Prue" and put in "Paige" in the scripts.  Notice that Paige's distrust of Cole just seems to come right out of left field.  Clearly, the lines were originally written with Prue in mind (who's distrust of Cole was well known). 

If you ask me, they should have dropped that whole Queen of the Underworld arc when Shannen was fired and used the whole of Season Four to flesh out Paige. 

Sometimes when an actor leaves a show, story arcs have to be abandoned.  It happened when Charlie Sheen got canned from Two And A Half Men (the Charlie/Rose arc), it should have happened here.

So which eps in Season Four are the original ones with Prue besides the obvious "A Knight To Remember", "Charmed Again" and "A Paige From The Past"? Also is this confirmed that the scripts we have now are the scripts written during Season 3?

[lilchi7212]

Feb 6, 2016 18:28:07 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

Yeah, that's it.  You see, the Phoebe Queen Of the Underworld story arc was originally meant to take place at the start of Season Four.  However, when Shannen got fired, they had to push it back because they needed to bring in a new sister, Paige.  So the first part of Season Four was used to introduce and set up Paige.

However, when they finally went back to that Queen Phoebe arc, they had to basically cross out "Prue" and put in "Paige" in the scripts.  Notice that Paige's distrust of Cole just seems to come right out of left field.  Clearly, the lines were originally written with Prue in mind (who's distrust of Cole was well known). 

If you ask me, they should have dropped that whole Queen of the Underworld arc when Shannen was fired and used the whole of Season Four to flesh out Paige. 

Sometimes when an actor leaves a show, story arcs have to be abandoned.  It happened when Charlie Sheen got canned from Two And A Half Men (the Charlie/Rose arc), it should have happened here.

How come I can't find anything about this on the internet?

[Deleted]

So which eps in Season Four are the original ones with Prue besides the obvious "A Knight To Remember", "Charmed Again" and "A Paige From The Past"?

Any episode centered around Paige, or in which Paige played a key role was written after Shannen got fired and Rose was cast.  Paige really started out strong.

Unfortunately, Kern had no intention of abandoning the Queen Of the Underworld story arc.  He had to push it back, but that was as far as he was willing to go.  IMO, this cost Paige a lot of character development.  Once the arc started, Paige was just plugged into the Prue role and, character wise, she never recovered.

Things only got worst in Season Five.  She quit her Social Working job, and her friend, Glenn, made one, and his final, appearance.  After that, there was no more mention of Paige's pre-Charmed life.  Seems that Kern and his writers wanted to make it seem that Paige had been there the whole time and that her pre-Charmed Again life never existed.  Notice that NONE of her adopted family bothered to show up for the memorial after Paige "died" at the start of S8.

[jdpm1991]

Feb 7, 2016 0:37:39 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

So which eps in Season Four are the original ones with Prue besides the obvious "A Knight To Remember", "Charmed Again" and "A Paige From The Past"?

Any episode centered around Paige, or in which Paige played a key role was written after Shannen got fired and Rose was cast.  Paige really started out strong.

Unfortunately, Kern had no intention of abandoning the Queen Of the Underworld story arc.  He had to push it back, but that was as far as he was willing to go.  IMO, this cost Paige a lot of character development.  Once the arc started, Paige was just plugged into the Prue role and, character wise, she never recovered.

Things only got worst in Season Five.  She quit her Social Working job, and her friend, Glenn, made one, and his final, appearance.  After that, there was no more mention of Paige's pre-Charmed life.  Seems that Kern and his writers wanted to make it seem that Paige had been there the whole time and that her pre-Charmed Again life never existed.  Notice that NONE of her adopted family bothered to show up for the memorial after Paige "died" at the start of S8.

That did bother me a bit. Also where was Mr. Cowan? Why wasn't he there? Didn't he and Paige have a close work relationship?

[Esmeralda]

The very obvious response - budgetary cuts meant they couldn't pay the actors to return for that episode...

[sol]

Feb 6, 2016 18:51:20 GMT -5 lilchi7212 said:

Feb 6, 2016 18:28:07 GMT -5 @tim66 said:

Yeah, that's it.  You see, the Phoebe Queen Of the Underworld story arc was originally meant to take place at the start of Season Four.  However, when Shannen got fired, they had to push it back because they needed to bring in a new sister, Paige.  So the first part of Season Four was used to introduce and set up Paige.

However, when they finally went back to that Queen Phoebe arc, they had to basically cross out "Prue" and put in "Paige" in the scripts.  Notice that Paige's distrust of Cole just seems to come right out of left field.  Clearly, the lines were originally written with Prue in mind (who's distrust of Cole was well known). 

If you ask me, they should have dropped that whole Queen of the Underworld arc when Shannen was fired and used the whole of Season Four to flesh out Paige. 

Sometimes when an actor leaves a show, story arcs have to be abandoned.  It happened when Charlie Sheen got canned from Two And A Half Men (the Charlie/Rose arc), it should have happened here.

How come I can't find anything about this on the internet?

I too wonder about it


Sometimes  statements ever heard or confirmed appear and they can not be denied after all this time

[Deleted]

How come I can't find anything about this on the internet?

Let's not forget when all this went down. 

In 2016, when one of the KarTRASHian sister so much as sneezes, it's all over Twitter. 

However, when all this happened, in 2001, Social Media was nowhere near as present as it is now.  There was no Twitter, no Facebook, no Tumblr. 

And this information was on theCharmedones.com website (which was, IMO, one of, if not THE best, Charmed websites out there (the lady that ran it, Andrea Haag, had access to inside information).    Unfortunately, that website shut down some years back.  If this information is one any other Charmed websites, I don't know.  As you may know, actually FINDING an active Charmed website these days seems to be as rare as seeing the Loch Ness Monster. 

[turner]

I asked my big sis who was an huge Charmed fan
She told me that after season 3 there were a lot of spoilers about a love triangle that would lead to a colness between the sisters and when Shannen told during an interview that Brad had already written a great story for Prue she was sure 'bout the characters of the triangle, Prue Cole and Phoebe
The spoilers also spoke of a sister who'ld turn, throwing the other two into dejection and she thought of Prue, not Phoebe

She was also on Charmed sons and remember the discussion about the changes they had to do when Shanne was fired, the prompt plot'ldn't make sense without Prue

I like Paige, they told us enough about her background and adoptive family, it was important her future story as Charmed Ones, not the past

[imdb lives on]

I would've liked to have seen her Uncle Dave or Aunt Julie. Also her friends like Shelly or Lila made her world seem interesting to explore. I wish we could've seen them more.

Also I don't think it was a bad ep. I like what ifs and it was nice to see how their lives would go if they hadn't found Paige.

[Esmeralda]

Oct 15, 2017 2:22:31 GMT -5 imdb lives on said:

I would've liked to have seen her Uncle Dave or Aunt Julie. Also her friends like Shelly or Lila made her world seem interesting to explore. I wish we could've seen them more.

Also I don't think it was a bad ep. I like what ifs and it was nice to see how their lives would go if they hadn't found Paige.

I agree it's not a bad ep; I just don't think it's a great one just because it's a what-if one that was thought to be Cole's last appearance. My reactions towards it are very similar to my reaction to 'All Hell Breaks Loose' - some great acting, great direction, but not particularly great writing that made sense with the rest of the series.

Rather than looking for a world without Paige, Cole should've looked for a world where Phoebe wasn't a witch and he was just a lawyer, the only way they could've accepted each other for who they are, truly love each other, and have a happy ending. But just like Phoebe had to blame Cole so she wouldn't have to take responsibility for turning evil, Cole had to blame Paige so he wouldn't have to take responsibility for never telling the sisters that he was possessed by the essence of the Source so they could help him and instead him giving in to the essence of the Source and becoming the Source himself, which is why they had to vanquish him - and why he should've stayed vanquished and never came back.

[magena]

Cole'ld look for a world in which he didn't sell his wish of love to his lust for power
His destiny was in his hands and he wasted it

[charmerjosh]

I totally disagree with those who say that season 5 hurt Julian. Some of Cole's best acting was done in that season. He really showed that he would play any kind of role and knock it out of the park. So yeah, season 5 wasnt so great for Cole, but it was fantastic for Julian.