The CW’s upcoming Charmed reboot has faced a lot of backlash from both fans and cast of the original 1990s series and now original star Shannen Doherty is sharing how she really feels about the new series.
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Doherty spoke with Entertainment Tonight last week and revealed that not only does the show have her blessing, but that she thinks it’s “awesome.”
“I thin it’s great,” Doherty said. “I think it’s awesome. I think second lives are amazing, so I’m all for it… I’m happy to see that a show, that back then was all about strong women who supported and loved each other, is now coming back again in this day and age. It’s about female empowerment again — not that that’s something new. Charmed originally was that too. But I think it’s wonderful, you know? And it’s providing a lot of jobs for people, and I honestly, I Just wish them well. And I hope that everyone just gives them a chance.”
Doherty’s support for Charmed comes in stark contrast to comments made her co-star in the original series, Holly Marie Combs. Combs has notably been very outspoken about her disapproval of the show. Back in May after the show’s presentation at The CW‘s Upfronts, Combs took to social media with her opinion.
“Let me say first that I appreciate the jobs and opportunities the Charmed reboot has created,” Combs wrote. “But I will never understand what is fierce, funny, or feminist in creating a show that basically says the original actresses are too old to do a job they did 12 years ago. I hope the new show is far better than the marketing so the true legacy does remain. Reboots fair better when they honor the original as opposed to taking shots at the original.”
Doherty, who played eldest sister Prue Halliwell for the first three seasons of the original Charmed, had also previously expressed her own concerns at how the show was presented when announced back in January, but appears to have moved well beyond them now and for good reason. Nothing in the promotion for the new Charmed has hinted that the show will be “taking shots” at the original. Instead, one of the new stars Madeleine Mantock told US Weekly back in July that the show is deliberately different from the 1990s series.
“We’re new characters living in a world,” Mantock said. “It’s a new set of witches who’ve discovered they have powers. I think it’s maybe a misconception to say it’s a rip-off. I saw somebody yesterday describe it as a tribute to [the original] and I thought that was quite nice.”
And it seems that at Doherty isn’t the only original Charmed One to be willing to give the reboot series a chance. Alyssa Milano also told Entertainment Tonight that she’s hopeful it will have the same impact for a new generation that the original did for theirs.
“I wish that they would have come tou se and we would have been involved since the beginning,” Milano said. “But having said that, I do hope that it reaches the newer generation and impacts that generation the way ours was able to do for its generation.”
Charmed premiers on The CW Sunday, October 14 at 9/8c following Supergirl.
