Loading...
Loading...

Prudence "Prue" Halliwell, Shannen Doherty: Seasons 1–3

Prudence "Prue" Halliwell, Shannen Doherty: Seasons 1–3
Born October 28, 1970, Prue is the eldest Halliwell sister. Born with the power of telekinesis, she later manifests an astral projection ability. Strong-willed, feisty and intelligent, she would often take charge of situations and has always been overprotective of her two sisters, Piper and Phoebe. Having spent her childhood taking care of her two younger sisters after the death of their mother, she became responsible, with a fierce determination at whatever she did, including fighting demons. This sense of responsibility occasionally leads to clashes with the more free-willed Phoebe, however, the two grow closer as the series progresses. Though at times Prue lets pride dictate her way of handling things, she never lets her personal life interfere with her work life. On May 17, 2001, 3 years new to the craft she is killed by Shax, a demonic assassin sent by the Source of all evil .
Loading...

Piper Halliwell, Holly Marie Combs: Seasons 1-8

Piper Halliwell,  Holly Marie Combs: Seasons 1-8
Born on August 7, 1973 and is the middle child. Upon Prue's death, she assumes the role as the oldest. Her powers include the ability to freeze and explode objects at will. She is most concerned with having a normal life, and always has reservations about her life as a Charmed One. When she first becomes a Charmed One, she is quiet and reserved, often having to mediate between Prue and Phoebe. As the show progresses, she gains a stronger persona and takes more authority after Prue dies. She eventually becomes the mother of two sons and a daughter, Wyatt, Chris, and Melinda, with her husband Leo Wyatt, and goes to great lengths to protect her children. In the series finale, the final montage shows her with a granddaughter.[8] Her love of food steers her to a career in the culinary arts, which leads her to open her own club, and as revealed in the last episode, her own restaurant.
Loading...

Phoebe Halliwell, Alyssa Milano: Seasons 1-8

Phoebe Halliwell, Alyssa Milano: Seasons 1-8
Phoebe, born November 2, 1975 is the baby of the family and is a spontaneous, free-spirited young woman. The power she was born with is premonitions, which grow to enable her to see into the past as well as the future. This later allows her to project herself into the future and the past. She later gains the powers of levitation, which she often combines with her martial arts skills, and the power of empathy but later loses the latter two due to misusing them for personal gain. She forces a premonition so she can leave for a date and is caught on tape by Inspector Sheridan. It is possible that she earned back levitation and empathy. She is a romantic, and later becomes a successful columnist and author. Early on, she often had a turbulent relationship with her older sister, Prue; later she mediates between Piper and Paige. Her longest relationships are with Cole Turner for over a year, and with Coop. In 2006, the Angel of Destiny marries Phoebe and Coop, as seen in the series finale, and they eventually have three daughters. She continues to work at the Bay Mirror and writes a book on finding love.
Loading...

Paige Matthews, Rose McGowan: Seasons 4–8

Paige Matthews, Rose McGowan: Seasons 4–8
Born on August 2, 1977. After a secret love affair with her Whitelighter Samuel Wilder, the Charmed Ones' mother, Patty Halliwell, gave birth to a fourth daughter. They left Paige at the doors of a church because her parents' love was forbidden. She was adopted when she was still a baby, and grew up as an only child of a couple. While in school, Paige would often get into trouble. Her personality is bold and vibrant, adding a new dynamic to the show from season 4 onwards. Paige's birth power is telekinesis, but because she is part Whitelighter this ability combines with her natural orbing to create telekinetic-orbing. She comes into the craft quickly, aiding in the vanquish of The Source of All Evil. In Season 8, she gains the ability to heal those she loves, starting with Henry. She is driven to become a "full-time witch", and has a hard time finding a career she is content with, eventually settling with her destiny as a Whitelighter, like her father. After the death of Gideon, Paige begs the Elders to keep Magic School open. They agree only if Paige becomes the headmistress and runs the school to guarantee the students' safety. Eventually, she resigns; handing the role onto her brother-in-law Leo Wyatt. Paige marries mortal parole officer Henry Mitchell and they have twin daughters and a son, Henry Jr.

Charmed Plot Synopsis

Charmed is the story of the three Halliwell sisters, Prudence, Piper and Phoebe, discovering that they are the world's most powerful good witches, The Charmed Ones; each gifted with innate magical powers they must collectively use to defend the "innocents" of San Francisco from demons and other evil beings. During their fight against the forces of evil, eldest sister Prue is killed, breaking the united Power of Three. However, the Charmed triple-destiny is restored with the introduction of a long-lost fourth half-sister, Paige Matthews, who is half-witch and half-whitelighter. During Seasons One to Four, the sisters' combined destiny was to vanquish the Source of All Evil, the ruler of the Underworld, and his demonic minions. Upon fulfilling their primary destiny, the Charmed Ones were fated to destroy the Nexus; engage in the Ultimate Battle; and usher in the list of good witches. On top of their supernatural lives, the four sisters must also contend with serious issues in the real world (such as relationships, careers, marriage, childbirth, illness and death, as well as preventing the exposure of magic, the subject of several police investigations throughout the series.

Production

Origins

In 1998, the Warner Brothers Television Network began searching for a new high concept drama series, and looked to Spelling Television, which had already produced the network's most successful series 7th Heaven, to create it and follow-up with their success. Expanding on the popularity of supernatural themed dramas, the production company explored different forms of mythology in order to find mythological characters with which they could realise with contemporary storytelling. Their chosen theme was witchcraft, which had become popular during the decade with films such as The Craft.

In order to begin creating the series, Constance M. Burge was hired as the creator as she was under contract with Spelling Television after having conceived the drama Savannah. When pitching to her the theme of witchcraft, she was only aware of the preconceived stereotypes of witches (flying brooms, black cats, and warts), but after heavy research into Wicca discovered that the reality differed immensely from her notions and, instead, she aimed at telling a story of witches who were both good, and looked and acted like ordinary people. With this, her initial concept was a series set in Boston, Massachusetts about three friends and roommates who were all witches. However, executive producer E. Duke Vincent lacked confidence in the idea and asked "why would anybody want to watch a show about three witches?". He proposed that the series focus on family values and developed the series-long mantra of it being about "three sisters who happen to be witches, not three witches who happen to be sisters". Aaron Spelling warmed to Burge's ideas and, after the concept was revised to a series about three sisters (now living in San Francisco) descended from a long line of witches, it was pitched to the WB's Susanne Daniels who liked it immediately, allowing the series to begin development.

The series was titled Charmed, after Spelling's suggestion of House of Sisters was dropped, and the three lead roles were cast to Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs and Lori Rom. Constance M. Burge wrote the script for the pilot, and they filmed a 28 minute version (the so-called "unaired pilot", which has never been aired on network television) with which the series was picked-up by the WB. The majority of the pilot had to then be refilmed after Lori Rom quit and Alyssa Milano took her role.

A week before the updated pilot, "Something Wicca This Way Comes" was meant to air, the WB developed concerns about the entire series and considered pulling it. Spelling Television forced it to go ahead and upon its debut, Charmed received massive ratings - the largest for a series premier in the network’s history - and massive Internet attention with dozens of websites focusing on the series, and the beginning of the show's cult fan base. The complete first season of 22 episodes was picked up by the WB after only 2 had aired; the first time it had occurred so quickly in all of Aaron Spelling's long and award-winning career.

Executive Producers

The two original executive producers from Spelling Television were its creator Aaron Spelling and E. Duke Vincent, both of whom maintained their role until the series ended in 2006. Constance M. Burge also became an executive producer when she was hired to create the series and write the pilot. After the short "unaired pilot" was shown to the WB, and the series was picked-up by the network, Brad Kern was recruited as the fourth executive producer and as the show runner in order to decipher how the series would develop over the course of its run. Whilst Kern remained with the show until its end, between the second and the third season, Constance M. Burge left her position of executive producer. Instead, Burge remained as executive consultant until the end of season four when she left Charmed indefinitely.

Writing

Script writing was done by a large number of writers, with Brad Kern having done the most writing with a total of 26 episodes, as well as the director of one. The writers with the most writing credits, other than Kern, include: Daniel Cerone, Curtis Kheel, Zack Estrin, Chris Levinson, Krista Vernoff, Sheryl J. Anderson, Monica Breen, Alison Schapker, Cameron Litvack and Jeannine Renshaw. The series creator, Constance M. Burge also wrote 7 episodes for the first and second seasons until she left her position as executive producer.

Script writing is carried out after group brainstorms take place discussing the events of the episodes, the emotions of the characters and the mythology involved. Robert Masello, an executive story editor for the series, credits himself as the only demonologist hired for a series, in order to add his experience to storyline.

Charmed is the only show that has a licensed fully bonded demonologist, which is me, on staff and as a result because I've written books about demonology and the occult of witchcraft, I'm there to answer questions about how a demon would behave.

However, as Holly Marie Combs revealed in The Women of Charmed documentary, the series aimed at following a mythology created by fantasy, and not adhering to Wiccan rules too closely in fear of coming under criticism for either not being "technically correct enough", or missing the truth completely.

Logo and symbols

During the show's run, the WB Television Network used two official logos to represent the series. The first was used during the first and second seasons and featured the name Charmed underlined and with a triple-aspect symbol above it (a shape which some fans refer to as a "triquetra"). Online, the font used is known as "A Charming Font" where it can be downloaded from certain websites, including DaFont. The second logo was introduced at the start of the third season and remained until the series ended. It was written in a different font and is still underlined and sometimes featured a triquetra above the name. This logo was designed by Margo Chase who also designed other television logos for the WB. She was inspired in her work by pre-20th century script.

Some designers have discovered the beauty of work of pre-20th century origin. Margo Chase of Chase Design Group bought a book—published in Paris in 1647—from a rare-book dealer and used it as inspiration [for her work].

This new font is sometimes known as "Endor" when downloaded, and it is the same font used for the logo in other countries, such as Italy where the series is called Streghe (Italian for witches). Although the second logo replaced the first in all promotional material by the WB, such as posters and television adverts, the first remained to be used on official merchandise well after the third season, including on the covers of the novel series, the DVDs and the official Charmed magazine.

terça-feira, 2 de setembro de 2008

Charmed Season 1 Episode 09 Part 4/5

0 comentários: