Charmed

Running head: CHARMED: MY FAVORITE TV SHOW Charmed: My Favorite TV Show Tolby Markham Kaplan University LS 526-01: Academic and Professional Writing for Graduate Students CHARMED: MY FAVORITE TV SHOW Charmed: My Favorite TV Show Charmed, I’m sure! Are you? Charmed is the story of The Charmed Ones – the most powerful good witches the world has ever known, whose job is to protect the innocent and not blow their cover. When their grandmother, Grams, suffers a heart attack, Prue, Piper and Phoebe Halliwell move back into the family manor in San Francisco where Phoebe discovers the legendary Book of Shadows hidden in the attic.Reading aloud a mystical incantation, the three sisters receive their Wiccan powers, which are needed to fight off evil. Despite wanting normal lives,  The Charmed Ones fight evil beings every day and have always been the most powerful source of good witches and good magic the world has ever seen. The perception of witches in American culture has und ergone a radical transformation in the last century as Americans have become familiar with scientific explanations for supernatural events.Because of this, there has been much less genuine fear or hysteria regarding the supposed use of occult magic. Yet the popularity of witches in America persists even today. In fact, the frequent appearances of witches in television and film have gradually changed the way most Americans think about witches. The most notable change has been in the presentation of women in these roles—from the evil, traditional â€Å"hag† witches in early works like Disney’s  Snow White  to the much more attractive and benevolent Halliwell sisters of the television series  Charmed.Magic in itself is fascinating. Having such a tremendous power id amazing and the responsibilities that come with it are enormous. Fighting demons, evil witches and warlords and CHARMED: MY FAVORITE TV SHOW the ultimate bad guy â€Å"The Source† is what th e Halliwell sisters are born and even one dies for. The three sisters, Prue, Piper, Phoebe and later Paige have such powers combined that they try to save the world everyday while trying to sustain a normal mortal life like everyone else in the world.The first in the line, Melinda Warren was burned at the stake but before this, she foresaw that each coming generation of witches in her family would grow stronger and stronger, culminating in the arrival of three sisters – the strongest good witches the world had ever seen; the three sisters would form the Power of Three making them the most powerful magical force ever to exist. The effect of a Power of Three bond being formed is that all the members' powers are pooled together into a  Collective. One of the benefits of this bond is  High Resistance.Of course, the downsides of this are that the amount of power one gains from this is relative to the level of the other beings involved, with the above example assuming that the beings involved are (at least more or less) the same strength. Another downside of this is that if one member dies it weakens the Collective, making the other members easier to kill off with the death of each member. However, on the flip side, more powerful (and hence higher level) beings are harder to kill/affect with ones powers than lower level ones i. e.Piper and the other various Charmed Ones have been shown to have taken direct hits from all kinds of attacks such as Fire and Energy Balls and live many times over whereas such attacks would vanquish any other magical creature instantly. The Triad  are also highly resilient to Piper's combustion power whereas other lower CHARMED: MY FAVORITE TV SHOW level demons usually disintegrate within seconds. Therefore this particular con is easily balanced out. Then there is the fact that this collective interconnects all of the members to each other in various metaphysical ways.Certain spells cast on one member may affect the others thr ough this interconnection such as when Prue was magically turned evil, causing Piper and Phoebe to turn evil also. A Power of Three bond can be broken in several ways. If the members use their powers on each other in a negative manner or atmosphere then the bond will be broken. Fortunately, this may be reformed by all of the members reconnecting with each other emotionally or something to that effect. For example, when the Charmed Ones used their powers on each other during an argument it shattered their Power of Three.However, later on they all got over the argument and showed their solidarity as a sister (which is where their Power of Three comes from) and hence reformed it. Another way, mentioned above, would be if one of the members died. Although this event is less likely the implications are more severe as the collective would be weakened beyond repair. Each sister has a distinctive power to help aid them in vanquishing the evil beings. The sisters’ powers are as follow s: * Prue Halliwell, played by Shannen Doherty, had the power of telekinesis and astral projection. CHARMED: MY FAVORITE TV SHOW Piper Halliwell, played by Holly Marie Combs, had the power to freeze time and also held the power of molecular combustion. With the death of Prue, Piper becomes the most powerful of all three sisters; * Phoebe Halliwell, played by Alyssa Milano, had the power of premonition, levitation and empathy, and * Paige Matthews, played by Rose McGowan, had the power to orb and telekinetic orbing. Rose took on the role of the third sister when Shannen left the show at the end of season three. During the show’s eight year run, Charmed was nominated for 30 awards and won 18.Just to name a few: * In 2006, Charmed became the longest running hour-long series featuring all female leads (Mitovich, 2006), and * Holly Marie Combs (Piper) was named the third greatest with in television history, only behind Samantha (Bewitched) and Willow (Buffy). In this same list was Alyssa Milano (Phoebe) at number seven, Shannen Doherty (Prue) at number tem and Rose McGowan (Paige) at number thirteen (Greenberger, 2012). To sum it up, if you enjoy the supernatural or if you like special effects, Charmed is the show for you.Charmed was a television series on the WB Television Network which ran from 1998 thru 2006 (IMDb, 2012). The show is now shown Monday thru Friday on the drama network TNT, from 7am to 8am and 8am to 9am (Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc. , 2012). CHARMED: MY FAVORITE TV SHOW References IMDb. (2012, August 24). Retrieved from An Amazon Company: www. imdb. com Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc. (2012, August 25). Retrieved from A Time Warner Company: www. tntdrama. com Greenberger, R. (2012, August 23). ComicMix. Retrieved from ComicMix, LLC: www. comicmix. com Mitovich, M. (2006). Charmed Hits a Final? Milestone. New York City: TV Guide.