CBS is apparently interested in a series reboot of Bewitched.
The original Bewitched series is nearly a relic of our culture. Today’s current premium demographic grew up with the show on Nick at Nite, along-side other former prime-time genre sitcoms, like I Dream of Genie and Mr. Ed.
It seemed like the generation before had access to odd, yet interesting, genre stories mixed into their television prime-time comedy – something which has been missing from our televisions for a long time.
In the original show, an everyday, normal sort of guy marries this nice, pretty girl and discovers after the wedding that she’s got a secret, she is a witch: she can wiggle her nose and basically make anything happen – the series never put any specific guidelines or limits on her power.
She comes from a long line of witches, including her mother, who is the most visible member of the witching family to the audience, though not the only member ever encountered during the course of the series. Mostly, the drama of the show revolves around the central characters and the development of their married relationship with the added complication of her god-like powers.
There was a Bewitched film a few years ago, but it was not a reboot of the story. It was about the cast and crew of a new Bewitched series, where the actress asked to play the part of the witch-wife was a real witch. This new series will actually reboot the Bewitched story.
That movie tanked in the theatres, but that hasn’t stopped CBS from apparently asking for the same team – Exec. Producers Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher – to come up with a proposal and for Exec. Producer Marc Lawrence to write a pilot script for the new series.
Here’s hoping they do it right. It would be neat to have a fun genre sitcom on television again, but there are frankly so many ways to screw this up: Finding the right balance between screwball and serious situations will be a sure challenge for the writers, and they could also make it terrible if they decide to make it too much like a drama.
We don’t need a new Charmed in our lives, and if it turns out to just be Desperate Housewives with magic, I think they’ll miss out on the geek audience – not that they necessarily care about that.
If the Bewitched pilot is picked up we would likely not see it until sometime in 2013.
