Bewitched Season 8? (1 Viewer)

[LeoA]

Darrin is just as spiteful and as biggoted as Endora is, if not more so. He just doesn't have the power to physically or mentally do anything to her except make idle threats and insults since he's human.

The few times he does have the power (Or incorrectly think he does) to do anything about it, such as with the incantation that he thinks Uncle Arthur provides him to combat Endora or the Samantha's father's locket (Or whatever it was, I forget) that forces Endora to be nice anytime she's near it, he's always more then willing to use it against her just like she is to him.

That's the glory of the two characters. They can't stand each other or what each other stands for since they're both so narrow minded. Their only thing in common that brings any civility to their relationship at all is their common love for Samantha, Tabitha, and Adam.

Plus if you want peace and tanquity, there wouldn't be anything left in this program to provide entertainment. It's the mess that witchcraft gets Samantha and especially Darrin into that provides for the plotline of 95%+ of the episodes. And Endora's spells are often the vehicle that sets up the situation for an episode.

 

[JohnMor]

I always found Endora the bigger instigator of the two. As far as insults and attitude, they each gave as much as they got. But she was a GUEST in his house while she was being rude to him, not the other way around. And she always crossed the line with something she did (or got someone else to do.) She truly would have been happy had she gotten rid of Darrin forever, no matter how much that would have hurt Samantha. Darrin, on the other hand, at the end of "Three Wishes" had the chance to banish Endora forever, but took one look at Sam's face, saw how much she loved her mother, and made it for one week instead. Yes, Darrin could be rude and ungrateful at times, but that's also true of all the witches, who always acted like it was their house as much as, if not more than, his. Can you imagine having your in-laws (all of them) just walk right into your house, bedroom, bathroom whenever they wanted, without even knocking. Witch or mortal, an in-law is not a resident and should never forget they are a GUEST in someone's house. Aunt Clara always did, but she was the only one on Sam's side. And of course Frank always did on Darrin's side. And come to think of it, even Phyllis never just walked in. As far as the gifts, no one ever took his wishes seriously and they continued to give him gifts SPECIFICALLY designed to get his goat. Why should someone act nice about that? Acceptance is a two way street, and while they never accepted each other, I do think Darrin accepted that Sam loved her family more than they ever accepted that she loved him.

I also think a lot of people dump harder on Darrin because he's a "boring" mortal and forgive Endora et al because they're "cool" witches, like they wished they were.

But they're both great characters and provided a huge portion of the entertainment value of the series. All drama must have conflict. There wouldn't be a series without it. But I suspect many people would have just wanted to have an all-witch series, as if the show was about witchcraft, or being a witch, which it never was.

 

[JohnMor]

And thanks David for the heads-up about the fare!!

 

[Jack P]

It would have been a lot more interesting from a comic storytelling standpoint if Maurice had actually been on Darrin's side, because given how he clearly can't stand Endora (thus accounting for why they are no longer living together), this would have created some funnier tension.

Even worse than the one-note, same-old same-old stale routines from Endora over eight years was how Larry Tate became increasingly one-dimensional to the point of absurdity. Early on, there seemed to be a greater suggestion of a closer friendship between the two (which resulted in my favorite episode where Darrin quits and tries to interview at another firm but Sam forces him to talk baby talk the whole time; if people ask why do I have this show on DVD when I can't stand the conceit of Endora, it's for the comic gems that are still there like that one) but by the end, one has to ask why doesn't Darrin just quit working for this guy when he could easily be running his own firm, especially with all "threats to fire him" etc. Plus, Larry's increasingly wandering eye over the years makes him come off as downright sleazy by year 8.

 

[LeoA]

"And come to think of it, even Phyllis never just walked in. As far as the gifts, no one ever took his wishes seriously and they continued to give him gifts SPECIFICALLY designed to get his goat. "

She also forces her way in everytime even when not welcome, just in a different way. She's physically not there just opening the door and walking in, but she always phones and basically barges her way in even though Samantha is trying to explain that she's busy and now isn't a good time. I don't see much of a distinction there, they're both coming there unwelcomed more often then not. The principle is the same.

"She truly would have been happy had she gotten rid of Darrin forever, no matter how much that would have hurt Samantha. "

I always thought their relationship was probably more like Carla and Cliff's on Cheers. Always after each other and acting like they hate each other, but there's a few moments when you see that deep down there's actually a friendship there (Like when Carla buys a new house that she thinks is haunted and Cliff helps her get through her first night in it). You see a few moments like that in various episodes like when Tabitha is born when their true feelings come out for a brief moment when the happiness of the situation makes them put their guard down and let their true feelings out, although Darrin quickly ruins that by going off the deep end in that episode.

"Darrin, on the other hand, at the end of "Three Wishes" had the chance to banish Endora forever, but took one look at Sam's face, saw how much she loved her mother, and made it for one week instead. "

And Endora always has that power to get rid of him and never does it. In fact she plays a critical role in saving him in at least one episode where Samantha's father is intending to terminate him right then and there (I think the episode where he first meets Darrin and discovers he's a mortal) and she gets him to stop when she sees how important Darrin is to her daughter.

"As far as the gifts, no one ever took his wishes seriously and they continued to give him gifts SPECIFICALLY designed to get his goat. Why should someone act nice about that? "

Even gifts not designed to do that get refused, usually for Tabitha like when one of them makes her a playset in the backyard and Samantha tells them it has to go before Darrin gets home. I can understanding refusing things like a million dollars, but there's even resentment there from Darrin when one of them conjures up something like a teddy beer for one of the kids. It should be the thought that matters.

I don't see much of a difference honestly other then one family is a bother in a mortal way (Like when Darrin's mother all of a sudden decides Tabitha should go to preschool all on her own despite Darrin and Samantha not wanting it at all) and the other uses witchcraft to be bothersome. And I don't see much of a difference in Darrin and Endora's narrowmindness and lack of understanding towards each other.

I like both characters (Although I don't much like the second Darrin, I think the show probably ran several seasons too long and they're just not very interesting for the most part), but I think there's plenty of flaws on the mortal and the witch side with Samantha and the two kids being the unfortunate ones stuck in the middle.

 

[bewitched1967]

Entertaining show, but the premise was dumb. A mortal chooses to work when he can have anything, and a woman who has god-like powers wants to live a mortal life? Come on. At least on I Dream of Jeannie, Tony wasn't against Jeannie using her powers. He was an astronaut, and that's the kind of profession that a person would be passionate for and would want to continue with. So, I'd say the premise for Jeannie was much better.

There was always a creepy/evil undertone to Bewitched that I didn't like, which wasn't present in I Dream of Jeannie. Endora and the other witches would always chant their spells and incantantions in a demonic sort of way, complete with thunder and lightning, and it was creepy -- hell, even Endora's eye makeup made her look evil.

So, if you're going to do a show about witchcraft that has nothing to do with the devil, then ...

a) don't make reference to Salem
b) take it easy on the eye makeup
c) stop with the incantations and chants that make it seem like you're calling on a higher power to do you work
d) stop with the creepy special effects (thunder, etc.).

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Agnes Moorehead thought this show was junk and just did it for the money. I think she overacts terribly in it (as does Dick York.)

In real life, Agnes Moorehead was something of a religious fanatic, carrying the Bible around with her everywhere and reading to people from it. This was partly the reason why her adopted son rebelled so much. He eventually ran away from home and she never saw him again.

I agree that "Bewitched" had a ridiculous premise. Most men discovering their wives could do such amazing things would be ecstatic. The ability to travel anywhere you want at any time and to have any material thing you wanted would make most normal people happy. But instead Darrin chooses to work at a high-pressure job and be browbeaten by his boss? Pride is one thing, but he comes off as an idiot.

And considering that Samantha went ahead and used her powers, against his wishes, in every single episode, and he had no intention of leaving her because of it, what was the point of the whole premise?

And another thing! Do you know how often, strictly for plot purposes, Samantha can't (or won't) do something that we know perfectly well she could do, except that if she did, there wouldn't be a story?

 

[snoopy28574]

I have not read this entire thread but was wondering about the picture quality of the DVD's. It looks awful on direcTV. I'm also interested in I dream of Jeanie. That looks pretty bad too. I know it will never look great but wasn't this shot on film ? It would be nice to see them go back and do for these shows what they did for star trek TOS, just not as in depth of course. I understand its not supposed to look stunning.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Originally Posted by snoopy28574
I have not read this entire thread but was wondering about the picture quality of the DVD's. It looks awful on direcTV. I'm also interested in I dream of Jeanie. That looks pretty bad too. I know it will never look great but wasn't this shot on film ? It would be nice to see them go back and do for these shows what they did for star trek TOS, just not as in depth of course. I understand its not supposed to look stunning.

I have both series on DVD and the transfers are great. imo. I think there's one season of BW that didn't fare as well with the transfers....S5? Others on the forum can check me on this.

As for the show's premise and opinions, BW is among my all-time sitcom favorite comedies and I feel fairly certain that this opinion is shared by many collectors as well considering that Sony released the entire series.

 

[bewitched1967]

Oh, you mean about how one witch was not able to reverse another witch's spell? Well, of course it was a plot device, except that they did violate this rule several times during the show's run when it was needed to advance the plot.

Moorehead only signed on to do the show because she felt it would bomb. She felt trapped by it and EM said in an interview the AM bitched about it for 8 years. AM also said that she didn't want to be remembered as a witch, and that she felt the writing on Bewitched sucked.

I saw AM on several episodes of Password in the 1960s and she came across as a very snobbish conceited person. EM was no angel either -- she disliked Dick York, never spoke to or saw him again after he left the series, and didn't even bother to attend his funeral. Now that's cold.

Now that I've seen both shows in reruns, I prefer Jeannie more. It was funnier, more fun, and the vibe of the 60s comes through a lot more. Bewitched had a racist (witch vs. mortal) and abusive (Darrin is the victim of some spell) undertone to it which wasn't present in I Dream of Jeannie.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

To me, the great problem with "Bewitched" are the scripts. The writers weren't good at writing funny lines, and their attempts at doing so were either unoriginal or childish.

Agnes Moorehead was from my home town. About 25 years ago, I met a lawyer who specialized in theatrical law. I asked him if he ever had any famous clients, and he said, with a tone of exasperation, "Yeah, Agnes Moorehead."

I asked him why he said her name in that way, and he said she was a very difficult woman.

I saw her in a restaurant in Chicago in 1966, and asked for her autograph (I was a kid; I'd never do that to anyone now.) All I can say is I'm glad she didn't really have the powers of Endora, or I'd have been turned into a goose or something on the spot. She gave me the autograph, but she didn't say a word and glared at me the whole time.

Since her son ran away and never contacted her again (how sad is that?), I believe she left all her money to religious organizations.

It's odd that a fundamentalist Presbyterian felt comfortable playing a witch!

Whatever else she was, she was an interesting person. Her first movie was "Citizen Kane," no less -- and she's one of the alleged 91 members of the cast and crew of "The Conqueror" to die of cancer supposedly contracted from making that movie near an atomic testing site.

 

[Jack P]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff
It's odd that a fundamentalist Presbyterian felt comfortable playing a witch!

Why should that be odd? That's why it's called acting, for goodness sake. Is it any less odd than ultra-liberal Carroll O'Connor being comfortable playing Archie Bunker?

Also, what may seem like religious fanaticism to some would be classified as in the mainstream for a lot of other people, certainly more so than what most of the rest of Hollywood practices when it comes to religion.

 

[LeoA]

There's so much in the program that makes zero sense that bugs me when I watch it. Like when something's amiss in the house and they want to to hide it from someone like Darrin's mother or Larry Tate. Why can't Samantha freeze time until the problem is resolved? She's able to at other times.

Or how come they can do things like bring back from the dead someone that hasn't been alive in centuries, but if someone's turned into a dog and wanders off she can't even twitch her nose and bring them back to the house?

Or how come she's able to reverse time in at least one case where Darrin gets spoiled by her powers and ask Samantha to bring him back a day since he wasn't sure he could return to how he was, but the rest of the time when something's wrong they have to come up with an explanation of how it was staged to show a new marketing concept and so on.

I like Bewitched, but I think it would've been best if it had been cancelled after 2-3 seasons. Lost too much steam near the end and they lost most of their originality.

 

[Rob_Ray]

I've had a love/hate relationship with Bewitched ever since its original run for most of the reasons stated above (I have no problem with the Salem references and incantations -- you can't do a show about witches without them). The use of witchcraft was never logical and in later seasons, the writing became incredibly juvenile. The black and white seasons were a love story about a mixed marriage which worked on multiple levels in an era when stories about civil rights and prejudice were in the papers daily. It resonated on many levels and Elizabeth Montgomery had a cool sophistication that was very sexy. In addition, the supporting cast (Moorehead, David White, George Tobias and especially Marion Lorne and Alice Pearce) was among the best on television.

As time went on, ABC dictated that the show appeal more to kids and it lost a lot of what little sophistication it had. That, plus all the cast changes through death, debilitation and various other things, didn't help. In its first couple of seasons, Bewitched was a phenomenon. It was a fresh, inventive, somewhat adult spin on what was already getting to be a tired cliche -- the comedy with a fantasy gimmick (My Favorite Martian, Mr. Ed, The Smothers Brothers' show about the Angel, My Living Doll). By the Dick Sargent years, it was rehashing plotlines, visual gags and one-liners to the point where the audience was way ahead of them. How many times did Dick Sargent tell Endora that she should chair the Ways to Be Mean Committee? Good joke, but all good jokes grow tiresome through overuse.

Two favorite anecdotes from an interview with EM a friend conducted:

Agnes Moorehead - The morning of the Sylmar quake in '71, everyone was talking about where they were and what they did. Liz asked Aggie, "Were you scared?" Aggie haughtily replied, "Of course not! God will look after me!" "So what did you do?" asked Liz. "I took the Picasso down off the wall and placed it under the piano." Liz couldn't resist teasing Aggie with, "Oh, so God will look after YOU, but not your Picasso!" Aggie glowered at her and sulked for several moments after that. They had that kind of relationship. Very close to what Sam and Endora had. A grudgingly mutual admiration. Aggie was secretly very proud of Liz's accomplishments with the show and was grateful for the attention and the money that Endora provided, even if it didn't challenge her much as an actress and she felt the material was beneath her. She could have left the show after her initial contract was up, but she stuck around.

Marion Lorne -- Marion was staying at a local hotel in Beverly Hills and furiously called Liz one evening. "Elizabeth! You've got to get over here quick! I've got magical powers! I can change the channels on the television by the wave of my hand! You've got to see this!" Liz drove over and after observing for herself that, indeed, every time Marion waved her arm, the channel on her hotel TV changed, she didn't have the heart to tell her that her bracelets were clanging and emitting a sound frequency that caused the "magic."

Another Marion Lorne quote -- The director changed a line of the script on the set and Marion didn't quite get it. She asked him, "What am I supposed to say here?" The director replied, "It doesn't matter. You're supposed to f*** it up anyway." "You don't understand," she answered. "I can't f*** it up properly if I don't understand what I'm supposed to be saying!"

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Originally Posted by Jack P

Why should that be odd? That's why it's called acting, for goodness sake. Is it any less odd than ultra-liberal Carroll O'Connor being comfortable playing Archie Bunker?

Also, what may seem like religious fanaticism to some would be classified as in the mainstream for a lot of other people, certainly more so than what most of the rest of Hollywood practices when it comes to religion.

In the early years of "All in the Family," Archie Bunker was supposed to be a fool. Later in the series, he became a lovable character.

I call it fanaticism to carry the Bible around with you everywhere you go and subject people to readings from it.

The Bible says "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" -- it seems hypocritical to participate in a show where they're portrayed as lovable (like Aunt Clara) and as heroes and heroines (as in the Thanksgiving episode where they go back to Puritan New England and set the Puritans straight on the subject of witches.)

This is one of the sillier conversations I've had on the Internet, and I've had a lot of them!

 

[LeoA]

It's acting, I see it no more odd then things like actors of Jewish descent that lived through Nazi Germany during the 30s and 40s playing German prison guards at a POW camp in Hogan's Heroes and such.

Like Jack P says, it's acting.

 

[Jack P]

My definition of "fanaticism" is when actors and writers succumb to the sin of arrogance and try to use what should be a medium of entertainment to appeal to a wide and diverse audience of people as a personal soapbox to shove a narrow agenda down the throats of the audience. By that standard, that makes Liz Montgomery in S7 the true definition of a "fanatic" IMO (and a chief reason why I don't watch any episodes from that season except for the one where one of my favorite ladies of 70s TV Barbara Rhoades, guests).

Jack Klugman personally ruined "Quincy" with the same approach.

 

[Rob_Ray]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff
The Bible says "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" -- it seems hypocritical to participate in a show where they're portrayed as lovable (like Aunt Clara) and as heroes and heroines (as in the Thanksgiving episode where they go back to Puritan New England and set the Puritans straight on the subject of witches.)

This is one of the sillier conversations I've had on the Internet, and I've had a lot of them!

This *is* a silly conversation. But it sort of shows how times have changed. Back in 1964 (and 1939 with The Wizard of Oz), nobody questioned the hypocrisy of portraying witches as good. The whole concept of a witch with magical powers was deemed so fantastic that the characters might as well have been playing space aliens in a Flash Gordon serial. Since there was no basis for reality in any of it, a devout Christian such as Agnes Moorehead wouldn't have given it a second thought. Neither would Margaret Hamiltion, who I believe also had strong religious convictions.

Elizabeth and clearly many of the writers saw the show as an allegory of prejudice against those who are "different." The Thanksgiving episode in particular is a plea for tolerance during an era when blacks were only beginning to be accepted as full participants in all that American sociey had to offer. Equal rights for gays weren't even imaginable yet.

As such, this show was thought to be highly moral by its creators. And, in the case of Agnes, it meant a steady paycheck and high visibility at a time when options for middle-age character actresses were increasingly limited. Few people took these shows seriously at all and the few who may have scorned "Bewitched" as satanic would have been laughed away.

To borrow from Alfred Hitchcock's famous retort to Ingrid Bergman, "It's only a TV show!"

 

[bewitched1967]

I have to disagree. In 1964, a number of ABC affiliates in the bible belt initially refused to carry the show on those grounds. There was no opposition to I Dream of Jeannie. When you compare Bewitched to Jeannie, Bewitched had a darker side to it. They made Darrin too much of an idiot, and Agnes Moorehead too much of the evil hag. After a while, it wore on viewer's nerves.

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoyed watching the show and still do, but as an adult I enjoy I Dream of Jeannie a lot more.

Officer: This is a camel driver's license!
Jeannie: Valid in all jurisdictions, except North Mesopotamia.

Air Force Recruiter: Birthdate?
Jeannie: July 1st
Air Force Recruiter: Year?
Jeannie: 21 BC
Air Force Recruiter: Birthplace?
Jeannie: Pompeii
Air Force Recruiter: Age?
Jeannie: 1500

 

[Rob_Ray]

You're right about Jeannie vs. Bewitched. Jeannie was pure, undiluted comedy. It was a wacky farce with no hidden meanings or messages. Each episode was 24 minutes of pure, mindless entertainment. And it could be delightful fun.

Bewitched tried to work on multiple levels. I'm not saying it always succeeded. But its goals were a bit more ambitious. It definitely was darker. My beef with Darrin wasn't that he was an idiot, but he was a hothead. Endora and the others knew exactly how to set him off and you'd think he'd learn how to beat them at their own game by fighting witchcraft with more human ingenuity. Come to think of it, maybe he *was* an idiot.