The hate for season 4-8

[charmedforlife28]

It seems like a lot of people hate season 4 and everything after and I was wondering why? I personally like Paige a lot and I was wondering what happened?

[Melinda Halliwell]

There were a lot of inconsistencies in the show, the sisters stopped caring about innocents as much, season 4 and half of 5 was the Cole and Phoebe show, Paige bonded with her sisters too quick then left her job and became a ditz.

The Charmed Ones stopped being that with Piper's constant moaning and Phoebe's baby quest.

Wyatt and Chris became everything and some plotlines were ridculous obviously.

Add bad charcteralization and writing to plus the fact Piper Paige and Phoebe pretty much murdered Christy you can see why those years were hated.

[charmedforlife28]

I completely understand, I have to be honest, I have not seen season 8 yet which is where I hear the girls are most selfish, I agree the Phoebe and Cole took up a lot of season 4 just for it to end immediately and Phoebe to hate him.

[Esmeralda]

For me, my signature tells the tale. I loved all three sisters *so* much in Seasons One and Two and started disliking them in Season Three and by Season Five I hated them. Paige was the only one I didn't hate during all this time EXCEPT when she was a strawberry blonde. The peroxide she used must've gone straight to her brain coz the lighter the hair the dumber and ditzier she became, one of many reasons why I hate S6 more than the other seasons.

Also in S4-8, the show wasn't "Charmed", it was "Whitelighter" where having a whitelighter for a father was more important than having a Warren for a mother.

I loved them as sisters who happened to be witches, which was S1 - S2. Starting with S3 they slowly became three demon-hunters who happened to live together some of the time, not the show I loved. I enjoy S3 if I can make myself forget S4-8.

I count S4-8 as the alternate-universe spin-off: The Perils of Poor, Poor Pitiful Piper aka PhoeME and Her Fantasy Men aka Two Witches Plus One Living Whitelighter Equals the Power of Three? Charmed (S1-3) is one of my top 25 favorite shows. The spin-off doesn't make the top 1,000.

Now that's just me. I think for a lot of fans (not me...) they don't like what the show did to Cole (Yawn!) and hate it due to that.

Please note that for me none of this has anything to do with Paige vs Prue. The way Prue was devolving in S3, had she continued, as the oldest, she would've turned into the Power of One and Poor, Poor Pitiful Prue, the way Piper devolved into the Power of One and Poor, Poor, Pitiful Piper. Phoebe undoubtedly would've still become PhoeME/Freebie, and Piper, as always, would keep finding something to complain about since she's the type who's never happy if she doesn't have something to complain about. Especially if Kern continued his routine of changing their destiny from protecting innocents to vanquishing the Source, I still would not have liked it. Just for sure can't say the same for other fans.

[Chrisaholic]

There were many loopholes throughout the whole series and left us with many questions how it could be that way when it was stated differently at the start. It just produces headaches and they are not good. All things were questionable in the end, yet at least there was a happy end, even if it was only glimpses of a possible future.

[universalcharmed]

Simply because Prue left. Majority of the people who hate season 4-8 is Prue fans. Not all but most.

[rebooted]

I think the hate for Season 4 - 8 starts from half way through Season 4 when Cole becomes the Source. It takes away from a season that should have been dedicated to Piper, Phoebe and mostly Paige.

But i think they thought that it wasn't going to be renewed so they sped up the Phoebe/Cole storyline to sum up the Source/Destiny thing, subbing in Paige for Prue while doing so.

[adzpower]

I don't think it has anything to do with Prue not being there. From what I can tell Paige was very well received, and as Esmeralda pointed out, by the end of the show she was really the only likeable sister left. No, it was the poor writing and storytelling that ruined the show. Instead of writing sisters we got demon hunters. Instead of saving innocents we got Phoebe's endless quest for a sperm donor and Piper's selfish need to be "Normal".

[universalcharmed]

When ever I see people complaining about the later seasons they always bring up Prue name. If it had nothing to do with Prue her name wouldn't even be brought into the equation.

Also we got countless episodes were the sisters were trying to save an innocent between season 4-8. Every episode the sisters were trying to save others. Maybe like 4-5 were simply about their drama but majority of the time it was about them saving others with a nice blend of what they had going on in their personal live.


The reason charmed lasted so long IMO is because of the blend between reality and Fantasy. People could relate to the family drama, the career drama or the relationship drama. At the same time though they got to see demons, fairies, other mystical creatures. This is why I consider charm a classic. This is why I like charmed better than Buffy and think charmed aged better than Buffy.

[sol]

I agree, it'seasy to prefer the Innocence Age, when the sisters were young, new and passionate witches
Byt, as in the real world, when bad things happen, when you loose beloved people, all change and the writers did a good job showing the sisters personal growth, a hard growth between fear, dangers and death

As for the unreal twice Blessed problem - created by fans, in Charmed is only a general blessing in a sonet - all at once some fans started writing that the sisters stopped to save innocents but it's wrong, another legend
It's true that demons became more present, an effect of the growing reputation of the Charmed Ones

[CharmedFaith]

Season 4 was GREAT up until Charmed and Dangerous. After they killed off The Source they just started getting really whacky, everyone started going out of the character and it became a hot mess.

[rebooted]

Jul 19, 2017 22:06:28 GMT -5 CharmedFaith said:

Season 4 was GREAT up until Charmed and Dangerous. After they killed off The Source they just started getting really whacky, everyone started going out of the character and it became a hot mess.

Agreed. I am a Season 4 lover and still like watching all episodes but something fundamentally changes in Lost and Bound and then, in Charmed and Dangerous. Both of which form the basis of The Three Faces of Phoebe and changes the characters permanently. 

Prue's death didn't change the characters, the writers did that themselves.

[Esmeralda]

Jul 12, 2017 22:08:14 GMT -5 universalcharmed said:

When ever I see people complaining about the later seasons they always bring up Prue name. If it had nothing to do with Prue her name wouldn't even be brought into the equation.

But it's the Prue-haters who bring up her name. Most fans who love S1-3 love the Original Power of Three - *not* just Prue. In fact a lot of fans who love S1-3 don't like Prue. I don't like her at the beginning of S1 (not until 'The Witch is Back') or at the end of S3 (after the wedding). She's Connie's (and Shannen's) Mary Sue, a very good reason to not like her, the way Phoebe was and Alyssa's Mary Sue after she became the star and Billie was Kern's Mary Sue, the reason a lot of fans don't like them.

But Prue has very little to do why fans like S1-3 more than S4-8 - it's because the original Power of Three needed each other to do anything. Once Piper could explode demons, Phoebe and Paige became as much extras as Darryl. And since Piper wasn't a very nice character, fans didn't like her. S4-8 is much more "The Perils of Poor, Poor Pitiful Piper" than it is "Charmed", and if it's not that, then it's "Whitelighter" where having a whitelighter for a father is more important than having a Warren for a mother.

Also we got countless episodes were the sisters were trying to save an innocent between season 4-8.

I'd love you to list these countless innocents who aren't family or friends. There are a few, yes, but not many, and definitely not countless. I know. My friends and I were working on a Charmed reboot of our own that rewrote S3-6 and tried to include an innocent in each episode by including innocents who weren't part of S1-2. We had to make up our own.

The best example of this is S7's Avatar arc where the only way the selfish, self-centered sisters would give up their own utopia which erased everyone's free will was when they saw their own losses. That's not protecting innocents at all. So you definitely can't count them, and this sort of saving is the only way where you can come close to saying they saved countless innocents and they only did that when they got rid of the Source (which was to save their own skins) and the Titans (ditto), the Avatars (ditto) and Billie & Christy (ditto). The only time the early set saved countless innocents and not individual ones was in Apocalypse Not and in that one they were willing to sacrifice their sister. A HUGE difference in the two sets and one of many reasons why I love the first and hate the second - and it was Prue who they were going to sacrifice.

Every episode the sisters were trying to save others. Maybe like 4-5 were simply about their drama but majority of the time it was about them saving others with a nice blend of what they had going on in their personal live.

So very false! They were usually fighting demons who were after them. They were demon-slayers, not innocent-protectors.

The reason charmed lasted so long IMO is because of the blend between reality and Fantasy. People could relate to the family drama, the career drama or the relationship drama. At the same time though they got to see demons, fairies, other mystical creatures. This is why I consider charm a classic. This is why I like charmed better than Buffy and think charmed aged better than Buffy.

Which is why I love S1-3 and don't love S4-8 - it's much more about family and sisters than about the sisters and their men and Piper's sons. Yeah, you had Prue and Andy and Piper and Leo and the infamous triangle and you had Phoebe and Prue, but it was always the sisterhood that was the most important. In the early seasons they were sisters who happened to be witches. In the latter ones they were demon-slayers who happened to live in the same manor, with any sense of sister seeming forced. The first set truly felt like sisters - they had the chemistry that the second set lacked.

Charmed lasted so long because The WB wanted to use sex and them to save their dying network after Buffy jumped ship to UPN. Had Buffy stayed, Charmed wouldn't beyond Season Four (don't I wish!). And I don't like Buffy, but can admit that that's true.

[Granny Charmed]

Jul 21, 2017 8:07:20 GMT -5 Esmeralda said:

Charmed lasted so long because The WB wanted to use sex and them to save their dying network after Buffy jumped ship to UPN. Had Buffy stayed, Charmed wouldn't. And I don't like Buffy, but can admit that that's true.

Exactly right dear. Charmed was almost going to end after season 7. From what was known, it was only renewed because the Network was about to come to an end, and they needed a slot filler on Sundays at 8pm. I honestly think Charmed would of ended after season 4, had Buffy stayed on WB too dear. 

Jul 12, 2017 22:08:14 GMT -5 universalcharmed said:

Also we got countless episodes were the sisters were trying to save an innocent between season 4-8. Every episode the sisters were trying to save others. Maybe like 4-5 were simply about their drama but majority of the time it was about them saving others with a nice blend of what they had going on in their personal live.

Jul 21, 2017 8:07:20 GMT -5 Esmeralda said:

So very false! They were usually fighting demons who were after them. They were demon-slayers, not innocent-protectors.

I agree with Es on this one dear. Charmed was *more* about battling demons than saving innocents in S4-8. Yes we did have some innocents in S4-8, but they were usually fighting demons.

[Aaeiyn]

I find fans still like S1-S4 because they're "darker" compared to the more light-hearted "fluff" of S5-S8. I've come to realized I'm not too into super dark storylines (reasons why S4 isn't much of a favorite season of mine, but there's still episodes in there I would still watch/re-watch, but I digress). I didn't mind the "fluff" that was S5-S8. Makes it easier to watch/re-watch and not have to worry about important small little details and continuity. Just embracing the show, at face value. That's not to say some of the "fluff" seasons were perfect, far from it. Only certain seasons handled them well via S6 and S7. S5 still got on my nerves because of how dirty they treated Cole but after he was gone, it got better. The way his character worked didn't fit well with the new direction, of the show.