Pretty Good

How sad is this?

The first must-see film of the year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I suppose it's cute enough, as shows from the time period go. I watched all the episodes... Tough and tangy, full of innuendo, and minimal plot line (thinner than cheap copy paper). Sure, it's funny here and there, but that makes it all the more disappointing when the rest of it's so empty. I dunno. I thought the problem with the series was that it was in color. And then I watched the "unaired pilot." WOW! I fell right in love with it. How can a few minutes (comparitively) be so enchanting? I found that pilot to be very warm and amusing, very reminiscent of the original, in all good ways. I'll give lots of spoilers from that! If you enjoyed the original series, Bewitched, you'll remember the light touch and the gags. Well, the "pilot" that got dumped included references to scenes from the original series. Adam is the younger sibling, just like when he was born. And in this story-line, he's a warlock! Way more fun. Tabitha tries to tell her boyfriend she's a witch and has to keep transporting him around - just like her mom with her dad. The boyfriend asks her to prove it, just like her dad asked her mom. Then he goes to "think about it" by imbibing that which impairs judgement - just like her dad. There's a slightly nutty neighbor who keeps seeing things she's not supposed to. There's a shattered statue that's neither expensive or difficult to replace - if you're a witch. (wink) There's a whole lot more that got lost in "translation" when they shifted from classy to brassy. Seriously, who wrote Aunt Minervera's kinky character? And where oh where did Uncle Arthur get to?

I just finished watching all 12 episodes plus the original pilot with Liberty Williams (Jana of the Wonder Twins.) The writing is just awful. Really really bad. But I could not help myself. Checking out one episode turned into a insurmountable urge to watch the entire run.Lisa Hartman (Pre-Movie-of-the-Week-Perma-Scowl) is absolutely adorable as Tabitha. She's cute, she's bouncy, and she does a pretty spot-on Elizabeth Montgomery impersonation, with the voice, the speech patterns, and that big shocked "O" she does with her mouth. And then there is the sexy outfits they rotate her through. Damn the 70's were sexy. Nothing now on Network TV comes close.At the beginning Adam took on the Darwin role being disapproving of the magic. But the producers obviously saw the bit was a turkey and dropped it.I didn't think that Tabitha and Robert Urich were a good romantic fit, she being smart, and him smarmy, but the producers were doing a good job of slowly getting them together.Aunt Minerva started off as an Andora clone, but quickly found her own voice.And we got 2 visits from the wonderful Dr. Bombay!!! I think had the show been picked up for an entire season, they really could have made a go of it.On the other hand, with only 12 episodes, I have watched the entire run and feel great about it. Had there been more, and they sucked, it might have lost it's charm and become grating.Recommendation: Buy it now, because Sony is not going to keep it in print for long. So for the $15-$30 you can find it now, it is worth it. Five to Ten years down the road, when you have to pay $50-$100 for a used copy, it just won't be worth it.

As another person wrote What WERE they thinking?! Lisa Hartman was very cute in 1977 but her acting was just plain bad. Perhaps the director told her eye rolling, pouting, huffing and over reacting to "frustrating" situations is funny. I'm also wondering if she was told to try to act like and mimic the wonderful Elizabeth Montgomery as her vocal inflections and reactions are suspiciously very similar. OK It was 1977 a long, long, long time ago so I will cut it some slack. If you watch it for the time warp factor alone (The clothes, the bad disco music, the cheesy laugh track, and the horribly written dialog complete with lines like "Right On" "Foxy Mama" and "Shed those groovy threads") its bearable. Other than that her brother Adam (who i really don't remember much in the original Bewitched) is a dweeb, Aunt Minerva is obnoxious at best and Robert Urich seems completely out of place. Its filmed very similar to many of the TV shows of the 70's - like Wonder Woman the music swells at every commercial break and every ending has to have a close up freeze of Wonder Woman (Diane Prince) smiling and or laughing telling us stupid at home viewers that everything turned out fine. Tabitha has its same bad endings but now we forced to watch Tabitha and the rest of the cast mugging and laughing to idiotic dialog. If it ever finds it's way to TV again its worth seeing just to say I'm embarrassed for everyone involved.2/10

I can't understand why shows like "Sabrina" and "Out of This World" can be hits with huge fan bases while "Tabitha" just seems to sit barely noticed in the corner. Lisa Hartman, later of "Knot's Landing," was a cute and sexy Tabitha even if the real Tabitha Erin Murphy was still a kid when this show was on. As Hartman once said, "if it hadn't been continually bumped for tv specials, it might have lasted." The problem was the rest of the cast was not very good; Robert Urich just couldn't do comedy very well and another thing is that there was not enough to connect it to "Bewitched." Every fan on that show can name all the characters, so just where did "Aunt Minerva" come from (the actress that played her even played a witch on "Sabrina." Maybe if the show was tried again today with Tabitha married and Sabrina working with her husband at a tv network, maybe ?