I accept that to a degree, but then they did start out in a much more grounded place - college drop out, works at an auction house, restaurant manager, and social worker. It was only as the show got popular they decided everyone needed a "cool" career. But again, losing a lot of what initially drew young women to the show by making that change.
I agree. I realized early on that the club was brought in so they could do cross-musical promotion and attract more viewers (because I guess teens and young adults of the 00s only watched shows their favorite artists were on? LOL. hollywood execs are weird.)
However, shifting both Piper and Prue from homely careers to cool careers took away the essence of the show. I liked that in season 1, they often met up at Quake after a big fight for drinks and a debrief. This wasn't exactly lost at P3, but it certainly was different because of a different atmosphere (club vs restaurant).
I liked the initial idea of Phoebe going to school to become a psychologist/therapist. This complemented her psychic powers, and even though the empath powers were retconned to initially only mortals, having them to Phoebe gained them in season 6, having her be a psychologist would have worked so much better as a therapist than a famous advice columnist. While Phoebe did have some selfish tendencies in seasons 1-3, I think this went way too far in the latter half of the series. She would use her powers to manipulate people and situations rather than for the good of innocents. I appreciate that this was recognized by stripping her of her active powers in season 6, but it didn't do anything. She was still abusing her powers in seasons 7 and 8, and then her sudden desire to leave the manner in season 8 seemed inauthentic.
It's funny. I used to love Phoebe. She was early on my favorite sister. She was fun and spunky. She didn't mind being between jobs because she focused on learning her craft and saving innocents. She went to college to be a better protector and defender of innocents. Her romance with Cole changed her. She became morally grey, having fallen in love with a demon. This went off the rails in season 4 when she became the Queen of Evil for a few episodes, and then she became a selfish shell of herself.
I'm fine with them having Prue switch to photography, I just thought it was done really badly.
1) Introduce a "hidden" passion she supposedly always had but we never knew about
2) Say that she "always wanted to win the Pulitzer in photography" ... mmkay
3) Say that she only got the job she had previously so they could "keep the house"... With the amount of schooling you would need to be an expert like Prue, odds are her student debt should've made it harder for them to keep the house.
Why not just go, "hey, I'm actually really stressed at work now with our new witchy life and I need a change".
I think you hit the nail on the head here. It's not that I don't like her doing photography. I think it blends well with what people in their thirties begin to feel, who have been doing the same job for 8-10 years. But it wasn't executed well. And it took away an excellent ability to bring in monsters-of-the-week naturally. And, as I mentioned before, it also seemed to take away her expansive knowledge of history and historical artifacts. Though I love episodes like "Murphy's Luck" and "Ex Libris," whose plots are centered around Prue's photography career. It wasn't utilized as much in season 3 as at the end of season 2. I think the writers were like, "Oh yeah, Prue still photographs stuff," and had her focus more on demon hunting--which was also kind of out of character. It certainly wasn't an evolved form of her character.
It's the same gripe I mentioned about Paige. They could have blended her desire to be a social worker and her desire to be a badass witch better in season 5. We lost a part of her character when she quit her job to be a full-time witch. Also, it is kind of selfish to rely on your (new) siblings--one of whom is pregnant--to care for you while you focus on being a witch. That might have worked better if she had taken shifts at P3 to help make money. But it just seemed like lazy writing so that the writers didn't have to figure out how to explain why Paige wasn't at work every week.
