Sexualized Saturdays: The Not-So-Charmed Love Lives of the Charmed Ones

I’ve been re-watching a lot of the early seasons of Charmed lately, specifically the first through fourth; to be honest, they’re the only ones I’ve watched before. Though I did make sure to keep abreast of everyone’s favorite Bay Area witches even after I stopped actively watching, for this post, I’ll focus on the the seasons I know best. As anyone who has ever watched this show (or any show that used to air on the WB) knows, relationship drama was often a big plot point. The sisters found themselves in a variety of dating scenarios, from the very casual to extremely serious, but said scenarios were almost always fraught with complications of some sort. How do the portrayals of some of these relationships engage with gender issues and tropes?

Piper-and-Leo-charmed

Spoilers for Charmed, especially seasons 1–4.

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Oh, My Pop Culture Resurrection: Who Gets to Come Back?

Hello lovely readers! Since it’s been roughly one week (and 2000 years, give or take) since one of the most famous resurrections, I thought I’d talk a little about some slightly more recent examples from pop culture. More specifically, I’m gonna talk about that awkward moment in a sci-fi/fantasy show when a character gets resurrected, and then, a season or two later, some other character does not get resurrected. Whoops. This is even a scenario that takes place in the Bible. We have stories of Jesus raising Lazarus in one of the Gospels, and the daughter of Jairus in the others, clearly establishing Jesus’s ability to raise the dead. But how many other people around him and his followers died without being resurrected?

This happens frequently in any story world where resurrection is possible. Why does this happen? Oversight? Quota filled? Price hikes? Join me on a tour of some of the more notable instances of this phenomenon in some of geekdom’s favorite shows. Character deaths are obviously major spoilers, so spoiler alerts below for Buffy the Vampire SlayerWarehouse 13, and Charmed.

Yo, Buffy,  I'm really happy for you, I'mma let you finish rising from the dead, but Jesus had one of the best resurrections of all time!

Yo, Buffy, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish rising from the dead, but Jesus had one of the best resurrections of all time!

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