by Doward Wilson

18 years ago this month, we fell in love with the wonderful world of Witches, Warlocks, Demons, Whitelighters, Ghosts and every evil creature that you can imagine!

Season 1 of Charmed featured the 3 Halliwell sisters, Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Coombs) and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano). Phoebe has just returned from living in New York and joins her older sisters at Halliwell Manor in San Francisco, where they discover the family’s Book Of Shadows which has been passed down thru the female side of the family since the Salem Witch Trials. Each of the sisters have a unique power. Prue can move things, Piper can freeze time, and Phoebe sees the future. Together they form the Charmed Ones, the most powerful witches in history. Their destiny is to protect innocents and the world in general, while trying to maintain normal lives and relationships without anyone discovering their secret.

In the first episode Piper learns that her boyfriend is actually a Warlock waiting for the sisters to discover their powers, so that he can kill them and take the powers for himself. Using the Power Of Three to cast an incantation and spell, the sisters defeat and vanquish him.

Prue is reunited with her high school boyfriend, Andy, now a San Francisco Homicide Inspector who is closely monitoring her actions and involvement in all his unsolved cases. When Internal Affairs starts to investigate him for his lack of closed cases, we find that it is actually a Demon heading up the investigation, and his goal is to kill the sisters. Andy dies protecting the sisters in the season finale.

The first season gave us background on the sisters’ living and mortal father and deceased mother and grandmother, both of whom had been powerful witches. We see the girls grow into their powers and become more adept in their use.

Every week brought new evils to vanquish and learn from, but at the start of Season 3, we are introduced to The Source Of All Evil, the Demonic Ruler of The Underworld. Overcoming him taxes the sisters’ powers to their limits but also gives them additional new powers to work with. The Season 3 Finale showed us the death of Prue at the hands of The Source’s Assassin.

Season 4 continues the battle with The Source and introduces us to an unknown half-sister, Paige (Rose McGowan). Paige was the younger love child of their Witch Mother and her Whitelighter (Guardian Angel). Paige has the power to orb (teleport) objects and eventually learns to orb and heal people. Joining Piper and Phoebe, the sisters once again complete the Power Of Three and work to vanquish The Source forever.

Seasons 5, 6, 7, and 8 showed us new evils, misguided good intentions, a perfect but flawed world, loves, marriages, births, and deaths. We learn about The Elders, The Avatars, Demons, Sister Witches, and The Triad. The final season finale shows us the three sisters, their husbands, and their children continuing on for many years and generations, leaving all of us with sense that Good will always triumph over Evil!

With the beautiful San Francisco backgrounds, daily battles between Good and Evil, and all the ups and downs that happen with families, friends, and relationships, this was a series that enthralled many of us. We had eight magically enchanted years of meeting Ghosts, Witches, Warlocks, Demons, Guardian Angels, Elders, and Avatars in the eternal battle between Good and Evil. We saw love flourish and die, only to come back for another chance. We finished up one century and started a new one with family and friends that we loved.

You can watch episodes of Charmed on TNT.

Doward Wilson is a retired and avid cozy, paranormal, and adventure reader who can’t say no to most books. He recently moved from Independence, Missouri to Gladbrook, Iowa. Located in Central Iowa, Gladbrook (population 900+) is small town, rural farming at its best.

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