Bewitched [TV Series] (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

"Bewitched" garnered 22 Emmy nominations its first seven seasons. Though silly, it was also a sophisticated TV comedy with some fun special effects, clever writing, and funny situations. Its first season, the William Ascher-directed series finished second in the Nielsens and continued to be among the top 11 most-watched TV shows in America through its fifth season. But it slipped to #24 the following year and fell out of the Nielsen Top-30 its seventh and eighth seasons.

In 1964, when "Bewitched" debuted, novelty sitcoms were all the rage. You had shows like "My Favorite Martian," "The Munsters," "The Addams Family," Gilligan's Island," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Petticoat Junction," "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.," and "McHale's Navy. The style of comedy was by-and-large over-the-top, with silly situations and loud laugh tracks. "Bewitched" broke the mold by allowing the characters to have more extended poignant and dramatic moments, where viewers got to see a side of them that made them less two-dimensional. William Asher (who was married to series star Elizabeth Montgomery at the time) won an Emmy for best direction for the show's second season, and in part that's because he seemed to know the difference between comedy and silliness. Plus, the premise was irresistible: Mortal Darrin Stephens, an advertising executive who works for the New York firm of McMann & Tate, falls in love with a woman (Montgomery) who just happens to be a witch. Darrin makes Samantha promise to give up her witchcraft, but well, situations just keep coming up where it can't be helped.

When Samantha's disapproving witchy mother, Endora (Agnes Moorehead), dropped in, there'd be the usual friction between "Durwood" or "Darwin" and his mother-in-law, often resulting in a spell being thrown his way. Later in the show's run, the producers got plenty of mileage out of historical figures transported to present times, and a little girl and born to the Stephens that had everyone wondering whether they take after their mortal dad or immortal mom. Samantha's warlock father, Maurice (Maurice Evans), often made a theatrical entrance, and practical joke-loving Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde) also popped in every now and then. So did other aunts and members of the witches council, and when things went really awry Dr. Bombay (Bernard Fox) was called in. Meanwhile, Darrin's boss and wife and family popped in too, and somehow the witchcraft and mortal shenanigans had to be kept separate. The witness to all this hocus-pocus mayhem was nosey neighbor and her husband, Abner (George Tobias), and, of course, the rest of America, who fell in love with Montgomery and her benevolent household witchcraft.

Over the years the show survived key character replacements--two Darrins (Dick York, then Dick Sargent), two nosey neighbors (Alice Pearce, then Sandra Gould as Gladys Kravitz), and two slightly daft and inept witches (Marion Lorne as Aunt Clara, then Alice Ghostley as Esmeralda). Minor characters changed too, with Irene Vernon replaced by Kasey Rogers as the boss's wife, Louise; Ysabel MacCloskkey and Reta Shaw both playing Aunt Hagatha; and Robert F. Simon, then Roy Roberts, playing Darrin's father, Frank. But it couldn't survive the gradual depletion of ideas that the writers faced.

Anachronisms had been the show's bread and butter for years, with historical figures either zapped into the Stephens' modern present or else one (or both) of the Stephens zapped into another time and place. But even those old tricks didn't seem to work as well during the eighth and final season of "Bewitched." And some of the episodes, like one which supposedly features a Loch Ness Monster that's one of cousin Serena's ex-boyfriends, is so downright stupid it's difficult to watch. I think that a group of seventh graders could have come up with a more realistic-looking monster. That's one of the worst episodes, along with one that features Esmeralda babysitting for Larry (David White) and Louise Tate.

Twenty-six episodes are contained on four single-sided discs that are housed in two slim, clear plastic keep-cases and tucked inside a sturdy cardboard slipcase. The titles and a one-sentence description of the episodes appears on the back of each keep-case. Some of the better episodes this season feature Tabitha as she tries things the mortal way but, well. . . .

1-2) "How Not to Lose Your Head to King Henry VIII," Pts. 1&2. On a tour of the Tower of London, Samantha gets mixed up with a hateful witch who sends her back in time to the court of King Henry VIII. Endora sends Darrin back to rescue Samantha before King Henry VIII adds her to his gallery of late wives. Montgomery actually gets to sing several long Renaissance songs.

3) "Samantha and the Loch Ness Monster." Dopey effects are far from special. Even if intended as campy fun, it's painful to watch. And the silly plot about a warlock being turned into a monster 40 years ago doesn't help.

4) "Samantha's Not-So-Leaning Tower of Pisa." First England and Scotland, and now Italy. The Stephens' European vacation continues as we learn that it was Esmeralda who made the tower lean in the first place, and she decides to right the wrong years later. Naturally, all of Italy panics.

5) "Bewitched, Bothered, and Baldoni." In the romantic city of Rome, Endora's spell brings the statue of Venus to irresistible life in order to test Darrin's fidelity. Better, but not by much.

6) "Paris, Witches Style." Samantha's father is furious when he learns that she and Darrin have failed to pay him a visit while on their European tour. Another stinker finds Endora trying to solve the problem by conjuring up a double Darrin.

7) "The Ghost Who Made a Spectre of Himself." A lovesick ghost longing to be near Samantha takes up residence in Darrin's body and refuses to leave. Better than it sounds. Louise is at risk this episode too, but at least the final European episode was watchable.