Article: Ten Ways Charmed is Better than Buffy

May I just add that the bit about the fight scene in The Wish being meaningless, apparently, because Giles saved the day with his super duper figuring-it-out skills hurt my little Giles-loving heart? Okay. Point added.

I mean, look at him down there in my siggy. All smart and wonderful. How can anything he does be meaningless?
 
J
Joyce Summers
I absolutely loved your 'smart and wonderful' description. Made me giggle
U
UlaGan
therte should be " fall for"... You forgot to mention his incredible voice. There IS smth about his voice when he speaks.
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.

This is basically backing my opinion that people who watch Buffy tend to be far more intelligent than viewers of other shows such as Charmed. To truly appreicate Buffy you have to be intelligent enough to understand the storylines, the metphors, the pain and the joys the characters go through, the subtle humor, all of it.
Charmed is something one is able to have on in the background whilst doing the ironing. It's a pleasant sound in the background and you can follow the storyline without paying much attention. That is not strong television in my opinion.
Buffy had strong enough writers and storylines to allow so much subtext and potential storylines (perhaps not pursued) to be created. It's why Joss described it as BYOS; Bring Your Own Subtext.

Also the fact that it was Aaron Spelling that backed the show says a lot. Yes, all Aaron Spelling shows have been a success. At the time they were airing. Once they go off air everyone always seems to realize how atrocious they were. It doesn't matter how bad the show was, Aaron Spelling was great at publicity and working the business and that is the only reason Charmed went on for so long. (While we Buffy fans mocked and laughed)
 
U
UlaGan
Well, I'd just add: 3 'Chm' seasons were just enough. :)
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...

I never doubted the fact Buffy's better show.
It's just Charmed was already delivered in fisrt three seasons.
Everything after is just an extra-moneymaking.

All I did while watching Charmed during my lunch-time after work - is to crediting the favorite actors - like , Wow, here's Robert Englund!, Oh, That's our Cash from Kindred the Embraced...
 
I finally read it. It was funny how the person actually thought they knew what they were talking about. I left a message on the wall that most likely wont be approved by the site administrator.

You idiot. You know nothing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You need to go back and rewatch the show. And after that, you need to go ask Joss for forgiveness and offer your life in penance. I hope the gods don’t smite you for your dumb ass-ness.

:hehe:
 
November
November
LOL funniest thing ever :p
T
tearsong
*giggle* niiiiiice! I totally agree
I got to the second point was bored. That was absolute tripe...I don't have the patinece for that kinda crap. You can add this to my list in the things that annoy me thread. Leaves me with the urge to punch the eejit that wrote it...Grrr!
 
The Chosen
The Chosen
calm down girl from THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND!!!! -- don't have a kiniption!!!!!!!! (LOMA!)
After reading everyone elses posts here, I knew I shouldn't read the article. I get so mad about stuff like that that I may post certain words that I shouldn't. All I have to say is that person is a moran.
Yup, I enjoyed it too. I mean, calling him/her that.

Buffy fans are just very intelligent people. We can't help it if Charmed fans don't 'get' buffy.
Now we can all dance around and point in their faces, na nana booboo. Ok, maybe that was pushing it. 🙂

Edit: Sorry, I don't any anything intelligent to say right now because I have already gone thru this on charmed-boards threads and such. It just gets old. But still very annoying.
 
I've never much liked Buffy as a show, but Charmed isn't better than the HSN channel's baseball card sales show.
It's hilarious to think anybody would feel that way. I mean, maybe somebody likes it better, but to think it's actually superior in some way is deficient, sad, and frightful.
 
I think I'm a little bit stupider for looking at that article. Thanks alot. I really didn't need to waste those brain cells!

Anyone who thinks charmed even holds a candle to Buffy needs to be evaluated by a shrink. Of course, I'm no expert on charmed though. It was never interesting enough to hold my attention.
 
Tueuse de Vampires
Tueuse de Vampires
don't worry, I made the same mistake and read the whole article
Well, I will admit that as far as the random here and there episodes I've seen of Charmed, his statements as THAT show seem to go, are correct.
Piper and Leo do stay together. Pru DID die and not come back. They were all hoidy-toidy about "innocents" although, it seems to me, that is MOST of the episodes I've seen...the "innocent" is never as INNOCENT as first thought.

But, it's where they reference Buffy that I have to take offense.

1.) Ummm....now granted I'm not school in Wiccan rituals, but, HELLO...this is a TV SHOW! From what I DO know about Wiccans, they aren't floating pencils, or throwing out spells to find demons, OR doing "power of three" spells and vanquishing demons. None I've met anyway. So, as far as that goes, the guy's on CRACK to try to say that either show is more or less correct than the other.
Willow was just as believable as I can come up with. In fact, NOT having a giant book in the attic makes it MORE believable. Starting out not knowing what she's doing, learning what she's doing, getting irresponsible with what she's doing. I can follow all of that. Is that NOT how things work in real life? You start to learn something, but can't do it well. You mess up. Then you learn. Then it becomes SO easy that you act like it's no big deal at all. Now, not everything has the opprotunity to ABUSE a new talent like that, but in this case, it does work.
And for that matter, with all the talking about how Phoebe ALMOST went to the "dark side" herself...how can he say it's believable for HER and NOT for Willow?
2.) I have nothing against "people of color" but you know, not EVERY tight nit group HAS someone of color in it. Throwing a "token" person of ANY color in to a show just to have one is even MORE tacky than not casting one. And I certainly don't think Joss is any sort of racist. So, I must believe that he cast who he thought was best and this was who we got. Having the BEST actors to portray a character has nothing to do with color or race. And to use that as a reason Charmed is a "better show" is just stupid.
What about Lorne? He's "of color" and he lasted LOTS of seasons!

3.)I have little comment on needing "higher powers" to help all the time. Both shows seem to use them. Buffy might not have always had her Watcher around, but who cares? They aren't the same show! Buffy also doesn't need her two sisters around to get her most important things done. She got older, she needed less "help", but when she REALLY needed it, she got it. Just like in REAL life as we get older.

4.)It's been said. Shannen QUIT and didn't come back because she no longer was on the SHOW. And the other three die ALL THE TIME! Joyce DID come back to comfort, I believe she did in Season 7. And, I thought Jenny, Tara, Joyce, Fred all of them had long morning periods. And I also thought it was a NEAT way to go as far as the so called "torture" in the heads of the characters. I didn't want them coming back to have ice cream and go to the mall.

5.)As far as having jobs and lives, I will admit that I wish there was a bit more of that on Buffy...at least as far as Tara and Willow were concerned. But, we saw Buffy, Giles, Anya, Xander, Angel and his crew....ALL of them had jobs and lives.

6.)Back to "innocents" not always being so innocent. And I like the gray area! Real life isn't "you're good, you're bad". Everyone has shades of gray. And, from what I've seen of Charmed, once they save the said "Innocent" they're gone. By the end of the 3rd season of Buffy, I felt like we knew a GREAT DEAL about most of their classmates. Their faces were recognizable. They dealt with them, saved them, did whatever and then there they were 2 episodes later. And "Anne" apparently made it a LONG way....just some of us didn't notice for a while.: erm :

7.) I give them credit for Piper and Leo, but they never seem very HAPPY Lots of "Leo's bad today" and turmoil about how he MIGHT be bad. I will say in TV in general I'd like more long term compatible couples. But, I realize why there aren't more. What Buffy did NOT seem to have were BAD couples. Everyone seemed to be a GREAT couple (with the exception of Buffy and Riley...but they still had moments.) Which is why there are so many BATTLES over who was best. They they didn't work out....well we are dealing with people living on a HELLMOUTH!

8.)"Without a moral compass, anyone can be anything at any given time, with no consistency or reason to them." Again, I LIKE Gray Areas! I've yet to meet a person who's ALL good or ALL bad. They seem to be trying their best, doing what they think is right and yet they screw up OFTEN. Mostly due to things they didn't or COULDN'T see beforehand. I think Buffy DOES get a bit uppity with her "goodness" for a while. Luckily, she comes back down.

9.)TRUE TO THEMSELVES? What does that even mean? Can't a perfectly "good" person walk out of a party with half a beer too much in them and drive into a van carrying a family of four? Again....GRAY AREA. You can say who you TRY to be. You can try and stay true to that. But, you can't say, "Horrible or bizarre circumstances couldn't make me do X, Y, and Z"

10.)Not knowing if I've even SEEN a season Finale of Charmed, I'll give him that the "big bad" of Buffy does get a little repetitive. And, not being a huge fan of either Adam or Glory...it's kind of something that bugs me. But, then again almost EVERY show does it. And I DO like that there is a bigger arc going on during all the "fun" episodes of the seasons. It kind of rolls the seasons into a nice warm blankie! It may be one of his ONLY true points, but it's FAR from enough to make Charmed BETTER than Buffy.
 
Well I haven't even bothered to read the article, as I'm sure it'll say the same old drivel that only a moron would come up with.

Let's stick to the facts shall we.

  • Buffy had consistency
  • Buffy had character development which didn't involve them becoming slutty.
  • The demons Buffy battled where quite scary at times and realistically dealt with.
  • Buffy storylines where consistent and well thought out.

I'm leaving it at that as I say, obviously a moron wrote the article!
 
i just couldnt help but point out that somewhere in the article this dude asks why the watchers council didnt send over another watcher for buffy... umm yeah, buffy quit the council in season 3. why would they send over a watcher years and years later? had to put my two cents in.
 
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