Article: Ten Ways Charmed is Better than Buffy

[TrueVengeance]

Is Charmed Better Than Buffy ?

Just found this and I can form one statement...WTF?! I find Charmed enjoyable to watch, but better than the Buffster? And for those reasons? I understand liking Charmed more cause everyone's different and all...but saying its '"Shallow" isn't exactly the best way to win someone over on the show 😛

Plus, Buffy's racist? Oh please 🙄

 

[Blondie Bear]

I completely disagree with everything this person said, and comparing Buffy to Charmed is apples to oranges because Buffy is MEANT to be metaphory. Most of the author's complaints stem from a lack of understanding of this premise.

I could say more, but then I'd be writing a draft of the third chapter of my thesis, and I'm not up to that right now.

 

[Black Eye Guy]

This is why they shouldn't let stoned people write articles!

And aren't allot of the bad guys on Charmed Black?

 

[Lyri]

hmm, a BTVS Vs. Charmed debate? anybody else having flash backs? lol

i used to watch Charmed, but after the farce of the 8th season, i just couldn't take it seriously anymore. i watch it occassionally, if i just want to zone out, but it's a little boring to me now. and they have no concept of continuity. they forget about everything! lol

 

[Rowan Hawthorn]

The only way I could see this list being anything but blank would be if the authors were hormonally-ravaged fourteen-year-olds. I liked the first season of "Charmed" okay, but it was in no way better than "Buffy", let alone 10.

 

[The Chosen]

*cough*Ahem*cough*

I'm going to go through this and show you how easy it is to counter this lameness:

1) Will's Craft: Metaphor for how her powers were growing; as was her love for Tara. Season six? It's showed how love can lead to the wacky. Season seven? Obviously shown as how even if you lose something (or someone) important to you, it will leave a void, and that void is always filled with something. Or you can look at it like this: Tara's death didn't kill Willow. It made her stronger.

2) Different races: I'm pulling this out of the ass end of nowhere, but look at Rona and Satsu. They've been alive and kicking and playing a main role for how long now?

3) Good and Evil: The world is morally gray, unlike how Charmed is portrayed. There really ISN'T a good or an evil, just a belief of what is right and wrong.

4) Death: WHAT. THE. F--K. Shannen Doherty didn't HAVE to die -- she quit. Like a big quitter. Quitness, aisle one! Death is VERY real in the Buffyverse, it's dealt with on every level that I can think of. Joyce had a whole damn episode dedicated in her memory. Tara shall ALWAYS be remembered by us, and Buffy was grieved off screen and on. (Also, on Charmed, NONE of the main characters have died. You can't be brought back to life by a Whitelighter if you're dead -- you have to be VERY close.)

5) Characters Having Lives: Charmed is a very *light* show, and portrays demons and their bad guys as not a huge problem. A potion and a spell and WOOMPH!, the demon's gone. Buffy had season long arcs and had to follow clues on how to stop something. She didn't have a Book of Shadows to refer to. (Which, by the way, is incosistent. Why would there be demons STILL living that are inside a book that tells how to kill them? Don't you think if the CO's ancestors knew how to kill them they would have taken care of it?) Meanwhile, it's impossible for Buffy to have a life. She's THE Slayer -- the ONLY one. (Well, not really. But Faith was in jail and Kendra died and stuff...) Evil PURPOSEFULLY comes a knockin' directly at her. She's a liability to herself and those around her...

6) "Innocents": Again, the liability thing. Buffy can't and shouldn't get close to anyone that doesn't know how to handle themselves. And it's unrealistic to become "buddy buddy" with a victim on the streets that you just saved the life of.

7) Relationships: Phole failed. Bad idea to begin with. (To be honest I can't stand the Belthazor storyline...) Piper and Leo got married...it WAS boring near the end. It was always the same story...Piper never treated him like her husband. Just someone to scream out to if someone was realistically dead, but then brought back to life. And then she lost him and got him back...and the marriage counseling? That conflict was pulled out of the writer's asses. It wasn't an arc (which admittedly it should have been) -- it was an episode. A quick idea...

8) Morality Counts: The Buffyverse HAS no moral compass, as I've stated before. Well, it does, but everything is still very gray in the Buffyverse. And Buffy had an excuse to act the way she did. Spike was the only person she felt she could get close to at the time. Pheobe thought Cole was "hot" and they went out.

9) Character Consistency: Phoebe was very untrue to herself, to be honest. The way the character was written during that period just wasn't "Phoebe." Meanwhile, Willow had a reason. She lost Tara, who'd she'd recently "lost" and had just got back. Yeah, I know it was her choice to absorb the dark magick, but she was VERY hurt inside. She acted like a normal human being, with supernatural amplifications.

10) Big Bads: The Source. 3 times. And this guy's accusing Buffy of using the same formula? Yeah, the formula Buffy uses IS repetitive, but it's never boring. There's always something new and exciting to be seen, whereas Charmed has a plot you can almost always tell the outcome of. Buffy killed Glory. What's next? Sacrificing herself to save her sister and the world. The Charmed Ones killed the Source (3 times). What's next? "Ooh, Piper -- let's go buy shoes!" (3 times...)

11) Marti/Brad Faceoff/The Wish: Giles was the main character in that alternate universe, and it was thus his job to stop Anyanka. And the whole "Accuse Marti of ripping off Star Trek!" is childish. Boohoo... No matter what, Buffy IS and always WILL BE a smarter show than Charmed.


I love Charmed, I really do...BUT THAT GUY PISSED. ME. OFF...

 

[TrueVengeance]

Very well said The Chosen!! Karma points for you:cheering:

All the points are wrong and pretty pathetic, but the one that really makes me :lmao: the most is:

On Charmed, death is real

Are you kidding? How is it real when the main characters die 9 times (not kidding...I counted. Piper and Phoebe have died about nine times) when the show was only on for eight years?! When a beloved character dies on Buffy, you grieve for them, miss them, and remember them. But you eventually move on, just as the sisters did with Prue. Their spirit doesn't come back just because you need advice on a demon or perhaps how to raise your baby?

Meanwhile, on Charmed the forces of Good are always there and always available to provide help and guidance.

Once again, are you kidding? The Charmed Ones never went out to eleminate the evil to protect the world. They only vanquished because the demons were stupid enough to attack them first. Honestly, if a demon really wanted to take over the world or whatnot, nobody was stopping them. The girls waited for the demons to come bother them...how is that Good vs Evil?

 

[GATEGOD]

hmm, a BTVS Vs. Charmed debate? anybody else having flash backs? lol

i used to watch Charmed, but after the farce of the 8th season, i just couldn't take it seriously anymore. i watch it occassionally, if i just want to zone out, but it's a little boring to me now. and they have no concept of continuity. they forget about everything! lol

Haha Yea!! When it was on I loved it ... now that its not.. ::huh1:: But Buffy I love even more now that its not on anymore. This tells me Charmed can't be better than Buffy, to me atleast.

 

[definition of insane]

I've already had this conversation with TC....but Charmed and I don't get along.

There's no way that a show that so blatantly rips off stories from every source imaginable can be better than Buffy, especially when they're so bad at it. Especially when they started ripping off their own stories and doing a much worse job of it.

So yeah....Charmed and I don't get along.

 

[VisionGuy]

I'm not even gonna bother reading that foolish article. The comments on the thread are enough.

 

[alexa]

I'm not even gonna bother reading that foolish article. The comments on the thread are enough.

Heh same. I just looked over it and decided not to waste a few minutes of my life 😉 I used to enjoy Charmed early on ..purely in a 'nothing else is on' way.. haven't been able to find substance in it though.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

I haven't read the article or the thread because there is only ONE way Buffy is better than Charmed - that's everyway🙂

 

[Joyce Summers]

Morbid fascination caused me to read this article and I believe I read with my mouth open in an unflattering gape.
I mean I used to like Charmed but after season 3 it just seemed to get very silly. But even when I began watching it I still always thought Buffy was the better show. This article just generally annoyed me in the extreme,

1. Charmed is consistent with Witchcraft? It's a show about witches so it damned better be, especially since they don'tseem to be consistent about anything else. Buffy is not a show focused on Witchcraft, it's a heavily metaphorical show revolving around a Slayer, not a witch. And refer to the metaphorical point for why Willow's magic continued to represent different things. I like that angle. It's a nice fun supernatural visual for whatever Willow was going through at the time.

2. People of color survive longer than one season? I'm assuming Wood's still alive in season 8 since he phoned Faith. But why is this even a point? This is effecitively differentiating between colors which is kinda defying the concept of racial equality. The show (Buffy) hired who they hired, color I presume being entirely irrelevant, but at least *all* their cast could act.

3. TC pretty much covered my rant for this above.

4. On Charmed death is real?? To quote Jenny Calendar 'That's a laugh'. How many of us were just shocked beyond compare and as heartbroken as Giles when we watched Passion? When Angelus broke her neck I actually gasped and I found myself practically crying for Giles when he found her dead in his bed and I was right behind him (Only further back and not on TV) when he went after Angelus for revenge. The whole thing was entirely tragic and awful and very real. And speaking of reality, The Body was practically like a death in your OWN family it felt so friggin real. Two whole episodes dedicated to an entirely real, mortal and medical death of someone very close to every character on the show, including Spike. And the fact that she comes back in Normal Again, CwDP and Bring on the Night as mentioned in this 'article' was further showing how the death *still* plagued Buffy. Unlike on Charmed where Piper had a medical illness that she was sure to die from and they just put the disease in a doll equalling happy, healthy Piper. Pfft. I mean we even felt the pain of Kendra's death due to Buffy's reaction (yes, that thing called acting).

5. 'On Charmed they have lives too' and how annoying was it to hear 'I want a normal life! My magic is getting in the way of my job! wah wah!' over and over again. The Scoobies actually know what's important; saving lives, saving the world and sometimes just stopping demons on the internet 'randomizing traffic signals'. Plus, they were in High School which does limit your contact with the outside world for as a teenager you don't really care too much about the outside world and High School is a nice social bubble you live in. After that they went to college which is another bubble and then what? This guy expects them to start owning clubs and writing for newspapers? They are in their early twenties. Most of the supernatural metaphors in Buffy in season 6 were showing how much they didn't know what to do with their lives yet. That's the whole point. And I'd rather watch Buffy and co get totally involved in their supernatural lives (as Willow said, it's what she wants to do for a living.'It's a good fight Buffy and I want in') then watch Piper complain constantly about wishing to have a normal life.

6. 'On Charmed we know who the heroes are fighting for'. The Charmed Ones' job is to protect the innocent while Buffy's is essentially to punish the guilty. She isn't given specific people to protect as she hunts demons and saves the world over and over again. She is trying to get as few people as possible involved because it might endanger them. That was a theme that was set up in Welcome to the Hellmouth for god's sake. Plus, most of the Innocents on Charmed were very annoying.

7. 'On Charmed relationships can succeed', yes but in real life that's rarely the case. Most of the time relationships do end badly and the majority of the time it's only a little bit later on in life that you find a successful happy relationship. I think this writer is forgetting that the Buffy cast were in their teens and then just their early twenties- never older than 22- this is a time when most go through several relationships before even contemplating commiting. That's life, that's reality. Plus, I agree with Joss. We may hate when Buffy and Angel broke up or when Oz left or...whatever ship you loved ended, but it caused us to watch, to be rapt with attention. Joss gives the audience what we need, not what we want. And we are better for it.

The rest of the 'points' written here caused to me to guffaw, completely flabbergasted in the style of Dick Solomon. I couldn't believe it. This is the most unbelievable piece of rubbish I've read in a long time.

The storylines of the Big Bad are always repeated in Buffy? How? What? How (Three excellent questions).

1. Buffy is killed by the Master, brought back to life through CPR, kills the Master. And then this finale continues to the season two Premiere.

2. She kills the love of her life, sending him to hell to stop Acathla from opening.

3. Every student in her class unite to kill the demonic mayor and she blows up the school to do so

4. Combined all four essences of the Scoobies to fight Frankstein's Monster, the new and improved version.

5. A God tries to bleed Buffy's sister (another original storyline), Giles smothers the human form of Glory coldly and Buffy kills herself to save her sister

6. From the loss of the love of her life, Willow regresses into her addiction to the magics and tries to end the world and is saved by the love of her friend Xander.

7. Big vampire fight against the First Evil and every Potential is made a Slayer.

How the HELL are they repetitive?!!

"In "The Wish," alternate-Buffy and her alternate-friends kill each other in a meaningless fight. I say "meaningless" because Giles is the one who saves the day, and he’s off somewhere else doing something completely unrelated."- MEANINGLESS??!!!! How can it be a pointless fight?? It was entirely pointy. It was showing the horrors of this brave new world. The intercuts to Giles and Anyanka were showing that the day was going to be saved, if not by the Buffy of this world, because the Buffy of the Wishverse was not equipped to do so. And the haunting music and the slow-motion of the fight make it a very poignent and moving scene.


This guy annoyed me. A lot. A lot stronger word than annoyed. He's on my list....

 

[anyatara]

I didn't even bother reading that properly. Charmed better than Buffy? Puh-lease. The oldest person I know who actually ENOJYS charmed is seven. I used to like it, but then as I got further and further into it, it got boring. Most of those points on that site are a bunch of s**t anyway. I mean, c'mon, Charmed is a show I watched when it first came out. How old was I then? I was three. I don't get how people think it's better than Buffy. Charmed is childish. I'm not insulting anyone who likes Charmed, just those who think it's better than Buffy, and to be honest, for someone to spend so long writing that, seemingly just to insult Buffy fans...need a life, much?!?

 

[Joyce Summers]

Bored of the Dead agrees: Spin off show Angel had a long standing Black Character

Damn; should have included that in my rant. hehe. But I wasn't thinking in Angel terms. You're right though. Thus further proving the ridiculousness of this 'article'

 

[Blondie Bear]

TC: I agree with every one of your points except one. There is actually a moral compass in Buffy. It's called eudaimonism: "the basis of moral goodness is the fulfilment of human nature to it's highest potential." It may not rely on an established religious morality, but it's closer to the Platonic ideal: "a just person is happier than an unjust person."

For those academics who want me to cite my source:
Foster, Greg. "Faith and Plato: 'You're Nothing! Disgusting, Murderous Bitch!'" Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy. Ed. James South. Chicago: Open Court, 2003. 7-19. (quotes from pages 7 & 8, respectively)

I knew all this stuff would come in handy for something more than my thesis.

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

The best thing about this article is how you can just take an argument and turn it around
like
"3) On Charmed, Good has a role to play - Joss Whedon recently described the main character of his short-lived series Firefly this way: "He’s a guy who looks into the void and sees nothing but the void — and says there is no moral structure, there is no help, no one’s coming, no one gets it, I have to do it." This same attitude has also crept into the Buffy universe over the years. In the beginning of the series, it was established that a Slayer like Buffy has a Watcher - a whole Council of Watchers, actually - to help her in her fight against evil. But in later years the Council has been inexplicably absent, and in fact now they’ve been destroyed. But is this realistic? In Season 6, Giles simply decided to leave, and instead of sending a replacement the Council apparently thought it best to let Buffy bumble around on her own until her incompetence brought the world to the brink of destruction. Granted, Buffy probably wouldn’t have accepted a new Watcher, but couldn’t we have seen the resulting conflict on the show? Was it really better to watch Buffy turn into an aimless antihero walking around in a fog?

Meanwhile, on Charmed the forces of Good are always there and always available to provide help and guidance. Sometimes they come off looking like a bunch of slackers - how many times has Leo gone to "check with the Elders" and come back with useless information? - but the fact remains that they’re there. The Charmed Ones have a place in the grand scheme of things. They’re a part of a battle that’s much larger than they are, the struggle between the forces of Good and Evil. They’ve remained free of the conceited notion that the entire battle begins and ends with themselves."

That's exatly WHY I prefer Buffy, not everything is simply black and white. And have the writers even heard of ambiguity?

or
"5) On Charmed, heroes have lives, too - All four of the Charmed Ones have had real lives that we’ve been able to see. Piper owns a nightclub, and before that she was a chef. Phoebe finished college and is now an advice columnist. Prue was an art appraiser and a photographer. Paige was a social worker before she gave it up to be a witch full-time - but even that change is something that’s been explored over multiple episodes. On Buffy, ever since the characters left school it’s been as if they existed in a vacuum. We see the people and places of Sunnydale, but we don’t really know much about them, because we rarely see any kind of meaningful interaction between the main characters and their surroundings. It’s as if all of Sunnydale is nothing but a painted backdrop to keep the audience from seeing the technical equipment backstage."

First, that's not even true, and second, I can only talk about myself, but if I wanted a focus on what happens to heroes in their 'real life', I would watch soap operas

 

[UlaGan]

I lost interest in Charmed right after Prue's death. Finding Paige, etc, seemed a bit "plastic", "out-of-blue"-plot key.
I dpn't have to add much to above-said. There's everything's already expressed. Maybe, author of such article has some personal issues with Buffy crew, and this was "a small act of revenge".
With Paige story went too far and completely lost its realism.

 

[palabravampiress]

I never saw Charmed.

As much as I hate to say it, the author of this review has a point. If what the author claims is true, it was a more easily accessible show. That, to many people, is what TV should be. A lot of people just don't want to have to exercise their brains when they watch TV. They think it should be a passive experience. At the end of the episode or season, they want a nice moral to be wrapped up with a pretty pink bow. They want happy endings. They want the good guys to be consistently good and the bad guys to be consistently bad without being confronted with the gray area and uncertainty that we normal, flawed humans experience daily. They, apparently, want to express diversity via tokenism. If "better" = simpler, then Charmed clearly is the better show.

Now, if you're like me, you don't think television is supposed to be a passive experience. Watching TV should be like reading a novel. It is, after all, a narrative art form. It should engage your brain as well as your heart. It should employ metaphor, symbolism, and all of the other literary techniques that add depth and meaning to any other narrative art form. The characters should face internal conflict as well as external conflict. If you're like me, you watch shows like Buffy because they push the envelope of accepted norms. They make you think. They make you feel. They force you to engage. They aren't mindless entertainment; they're high art. Joss is to TV what Fellini was to film or what Sterne was to the novel. If you're like me, then, and you judge shows by this measure of quality, then Buffy is the better show. I've never seen Charmed, but if what its fans say is true -- if it lacked metaphor and moral ambiguity and material intended for an adult audience -- then I don't need to see Charmed to stand by the opinion that, by my standards, Buffy is the better show.

 

[The Chosen]

I lost interest in Charmed right after Prue's death. Finding Paige, etc, seemed a bit "plastic", "out-of-blue"-plot key.

Actually, Patty (The CO's mom) had an affair with her Whitelighter, Sam, and produced a baby, Paige... It was established before Paige was even thought about that Patty had cheated with her Whitelighter.

In the end, the writer's were lucky they even had that plot line to pull out of their asses.

See? Buffy = Better show. None of Joss' actors EVER quit. Maybe Brad Kern just didn't care if Shannen was happy or not? Who knows...