Charmed: An Oral History

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IN THE BEGINNING…

“During the first year of Charmed, we were trying to figure out what the show was going to be,” showrunner Brad Kern recalls. “Will there be a demon of the week? How do we keep the focus on the sisters without having the magic overshadow them? It was an overwhelming experience, and were it not for the star power of Alyssa Milano, Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs, I don’t think the show would have lasted long enough for us to figure that out.”
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IDENTITY CRISIS

“We were all over the map early on,” Kern admits of the series’ attempts to find itself in its first season.
Specifically pointing to the episode “Wedding from Hell,” in which the Halliwells battle a vindictive demon bride, he says, “There was never a more appropriately named episode. We were scrambling to figure out what the show was, and when we did that, we looked at it and said, ‘That’s really embarrassing.’”
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‘THAT’S THE SHOW!’

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Charmed to find its groove. The big ‘a-ha!’ moment, Kern recalls, came during “Dead Man Dating,” the fifth episode produced:“We were watching the rough cuts in the screening room and went, ‘That’s it! That’s the show!’ It was romantic, supernatural, emotional, funny, quirky — it was really an eye-opener. From that point, we tried to figure out how to replicate that vibe going forward.” (And yes, that is John Cho circa 1998.)
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MIXED MESSAGES

But even with a firm identity in place, Charmed was “constantly” misrepresented, Kern notes:
“The joke was they would always promote the show as T-ts and Witches. Like, what are you doing? You’re focusing on the wrong thing! Of course the actors are beautiful and the sexual themes are part of the show, but that’s not the focus, and it shouldn’t be. Networks are always looking for ways to make a show stand out, and Buffy had carved out its place as the quirky, sophisticated show. The network definitely liked Buffy better, although we stayed on the air longer. I don’t think the network ever gave Charmed the credit it was due.”
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PHOEBE’S MR. RIGHT (NOW)

Charmed became more serialized in its third season, thanks in part to the arrival of Julian McMahon’s Cole Turner.
“One of the challenges on the show was finding strong male characters that did not disempower our stars,” Kern explains. “When you’re doing a show that focuses on female empowerment, the tendency is to get emasculated male characters, which is not good either. Julian was exactly what we were looking for. It was only supposed to be a seven-episode arc, but that arc turned into a two-year gig because he was just so fantastic.”
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PHOEBE’S MR. RIGHT (NOW), cont’d.

Sadly, Cole and Phoebe simply weren’t meant to last — though their on-and-off relationship did span nearly three seasons.
“In my mind, that was the tragic love,” Kern says. “As much as Cole wanted to conquer his evil side, we knew the fun would be in the conflict of seeing him try. Phoebe, the epitome of love, tried to overcome that evil, but it was baked into his DNA. … Ultimately, she had to move on. And he had to die.”
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THE TURNING POINT

Speaking of tragic ends… By the time Season 3 drew to a close in 2001, behind-the-scenes tensions had come to a boil, ultimately resulting in Doherty’s departure from the show.
“It was a sensitive time for a lot of people,” Kern acknowledges. “There were internal issues that were problematic. I’d rather not get into the dirty laundry this many years later, but it is safe to say that there were changes being thought about.”
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THE TURNING POINT, cont’d.

Season 3’s Kern-penned finale, which ended with all three sisters in mortal danger, “gave everyone options about what they were or were not going to do,” he explains. “As an executive producer, my job was to put out a compelling finale. So the cliffhanger ending that would eventually launch us into our fourth season was something I’d been planning on doing no matter what. If the network were to say ‘You’re keeping your entire cast,’ I simply would have written a way out of it in Season 4.”
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WHAT NOW?!

“Once it was clear to us that Shannen wouldn’t be coming back, we were scrambling,” Kern admits. “The Power of Three was baked into the DNA of the series, so the question was: How do we replicate the Power of Three when one of the sisters has died?”
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TURNING THE PAIGE

Kern’s idea for the introduction of a fourth sister was inspired by what he calls the “shifting of dynamics.”
“Prue was the oldest sister, so if she’s dead, that made Piper the oldest sister,” Kern points out. “And Phoebe, who was always the wanderlust youngest sister, suddenly had to grow up. My job was to keep the series on the air as long as possible, which means finding ways for these characters to grow.”
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ROSE’S TURN

”Rose McGowan was the only person we saw for Paige. We didn’t audition anyone else,” Kern says, though he admits names like Jennifer Love Hewitt and Tiffani Thiessen were tossed around. “We were replacing Shannen Doherty, who was a star, and there was some talk about how well the show would do without her. There was resistance from some quote-unquote stars to take that risk.”
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ROSE’S TURN, cont’d.

“It worked out to our benefit,” Kern says, “because Rose presented a wholly different character and a light, goofy approach — the opposite of what Shannen had brought to the show. Rose’s quirky, approachable personality shined through and gave us plenty to work with.”
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A PICTURE’S WORTH… A LOT, APPARENTLY

To this day, fans note with disapproval that all photos of Prue vanished from the manor after her death — but it turns out there’s a very good reason for that:
Explains Kern, “I tried like crazy to get her in flashbacks and to have photographs of her on the walls, but what I was told — and I’ve subsequently been told that this is not the case — by the studio that we would have to pay her per-episode fee, which we couldn’t afford, if we were even just going to use a photo of her. That’s what I was told.”
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BABY TALK

Piper’s pregnancy in Season 5 raised “fierce concerns” from both the network and the studio, Kern recalls, but he fought for it — and won. “I felt strongly that, by that point in the series, we’d given the show a foundational reality,” he explains. “We tried to play out life events as real as possible. The series could, and should, play real. That’s how we buy all the magic, because the sisters are real.”
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BABY TALK, cont’d.

“The other concern,” Kern notes, “was that we had demons popping in every week. How could we have fun with that when there’s a pregnant woman or a baby in the house? One of the solutions, which we ultimately went with, was making [Wyatt] one of the most powerful magical beings ever.”
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OH, BROTHER, WHO ART THOU?

While we’re talking about Wyatt, here’s another rumor Kern can clear up: Drew Fuller’s time-traveling Chris was always meant to be Wyatt’s younger brother. Many fans speculate that he was originally supposed to be Wyatt from the future, but had his identity changed as a result of Combs’ real-life pregnancy being written into the show in Season 6. That, Kern says, is untrue.
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SCHOOL DAZE

Season 6 introduced Magic School into the Charmed universe, though Kern admits it didn’t come without opposition. “Our biggest concern was that people were going to think we were ripping off Harry Potter, which was the reason we almost didn’t do it. … There was a lot of divided thought within the writers’ room. I ultimately said, ‘Well, Harry Potter’s not the first one to come up with a magic school either, so who did they rip off?'”
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SCHOOL DAZE, cont’d.

Then again, maybe they should have called it Practical Magic School, given its real-world origins.
“As a series gets older, paradoxically, you actually have less money to shoot episodes,” Kern says. “One of the cutbacks was to do more days on the lot; Magic School became something we could build and shoot, and we had ideas for ways we could incorporate it into the series beyond Season 6. And with the bad guy we created for Season 6, we had to open up that world.”
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS

At the end of Season 7, with no guaranteed renewal for the first time in the series’ history, Kern “had no choice but to do a hybrid finale, where it kind of worked as a season and series finale — but didn’t really work great as either one. … It was frustrating, because we had loyal fans that deserved a true finale, and I couldn’t write it.”
(To refresh your memory, Season 7 ended with the sisters defeating Zankou, then faking their own deaths to start their lives anew.)
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS, cont’d.

Speaking of the final battle with Zankou, let’s never forget that this happened.
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LET’S MAKE A DEAL

Charmed ended up getting an eighth season, though it came at a (literal) cost: “Hundreds of thousands of dollars less per episode,” Kern recalls of the final budget. “We couldn’t go on location anymore, either. The entire last season had to be shot on the Paramount lot. We had to cut back on visual effects, stars and guest stars.”
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LATER, LEO!

But the most noticeable budget cut came in the form of Leo’s (temporary) departure. “We couldn’t afford to have him in all 22 episodes,” Kern says, “so Brian’s character was frozen in Episode 10. … The leap of faith for me was hoping beyond hope of talking him into coming back for the series finale. He was under no obligation to do that. I was banking on the fact that he was truly a great guy, loyal to the audience, and he was.”
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ENTER BILLIE

Season 8 also welcomed a new series regular, former 8 Simple Rules star Kaley Cuoco, as Billie Jenkins, a young witch who developed a near-fatal rivalry with the Halliwells.
The character was created, Kern explains, “to lighten the load, screen-time wise, of Alyssa, Holly and Rose. We needed to give someone else some of the work; our stars were dog tired after seven years. Just as Rose was brought in after Prue died to infuse fresh energy, Kaley’s character was supposed to try to bring new blood to an aging show.”
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ENTER BILLIE, cont’d.

“One of the rumors was that [Cuoco] was brought in to possibly create a spinoff, which is just not true,” Kern adds. “Was there a conversation about whether it could possibly happen? Sure, but that wasn’t why she was brought in.”
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A FITTING FAREWELL

On May 21, 2006, Charmed aired its proper series finale, an episode Kern says “will always have a special place in [his] heart.”
“I can’t speak for the audience, but I wanted to leave them with the feeling that the magic will continue,” he adds. “This story may be over, but the magic lives on — and I felt I accomplished that.”
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MISSED CONNECTION

Despite Prue’s memory factoring into the series finale, “there was no talk about bringing [Shannen Doherty] back physically,” Kern says. “We just didn’t believe it could ever happen — that she would ever want to do it, or the network would want to do it. And we may have been wrong. She might have jumped at the chance. But there were a lot of internal issues that led up to her leaving … on a lot of different people’s sides. It just felt like that was probably not ever going to be able to happen. That was the prevailing opinion at the time.”
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PHOTO FINISH

Still, Kern regrets not being able to — at the very least — include a photo of Prue in the episode’s final montage.
“You can’t end Charmed without honoring Prue,” he acknowledges, “but the powers that be made it clear that it was either almost impossible to accomplish, or it was going to cost us a lot of money. So I had to make the choice: Do I pay the money for the one photo and not be able to afford to bring back Patty, Grams or even Leo?”
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BONUS SCOOP!

Kern reveals that his son, six years old at the time, appears in the series finale. When Leo is seen teaching at Magic School, Kern’s son is the student who orbs the book into his hand.
Fun!
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AND NOW…

…a message from Grams.

charmed-season-1-beginning

IN THE BEGINNING…

charmed-season-1-wedding-from-hell

IDENTITY CRISIS

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‘THAT’S THE SHOW!’

charmed-promos

MIXED MESSAGES

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PHOEBE’S MR. RIGHT (NOW)

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PHOEBE’S MR. RIGHT (NOW), cont’d.

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THE TURNING POINT

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THE TURNING POINT, cont’d.

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WHAT NOW?!

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TURNING THE PAIGE

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ROSE’S TURN

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ROSE’S TURN, cont’d.

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A PICTURE’S WORTH… A LOT, APPARENTLY

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BABY TALK

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BABY TALK, cont’d.

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OH, BROTHER, WHO ART THOU?

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SCHOOL DAZE

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SCHOOL DAZE, cont’d.

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UNFINISHED BUSINESS

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UNFINISHED BUSINESS, cont’d.

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LET’S MAKE A DEAL

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LATER, LEO!

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ENTER BILLIE

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ENTER BILLIE, cont’d.

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A FITTING FAREWELL

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MISSED CONNECTION

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PHOTO FINISH

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BONUS SCOOP!

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AND NOW…