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Reviews
iCarly: iMeet Fred (2009)
Popular Opinion: It's Okay to Have Unpopular Opinions
This episode is perhaps the worst of the series largely for three main reasons:
1) Inordinate and unnecessary Freddie bullying and abuse
2) Having an unpopular opinion about someone means that you can be subjected to physical battery and verbal abuse from others who disagree with you
3) Fred's voice is annoying (Although this reason isn't really a main one, but rather it gives the viewer something more to hate about the episode.)
So in the beginning of the episode, the iCarly gang is filming an episode of their web show, and they are reacting to a Fred video where he goes swimming. Once that video has ended, Carly and Sam express interest in watching another Fred video, but Freddie says that he'd rather the girls shave stuffed animals because he doesn't think Fred is very funny. Now you've done it, Freddie. Because of Freddie's harmless comment, Fred announces that his feelings are hurt and will no longer be posting any videos. So, everybody takes out the majority of their anger on Freddie, causing him to get bombarded with insults and taunts, him getting kicked out of all his clubs, and even acts of physical violence and threats against him. And the iCarly crew is also affected by proxy, as many stop watching iCarly and people are taunting Carly and Sam. Oh, and Spencer buys an ostrich because he listened to a magic meatball. (Just watch the episode if you want more context). Anyway, because the iCarly crew is being subjected to unwarranted hate, they decide they need to set out to Fred's place and talk to him. It turns out that Fred set the whole thing up in a convoluted attempt at attracting more attention and viewers for himself AND for iCarly. Anyway, Freddie was forced to apologize to Fred by Sam because he dared to think that Fred wasn't funny. The episode ends with Fred appearing on iCarly and a short video of Fred and the gang.
So, because Freddie had an unpopular opinion, he damaged Fred's fragile ego which was really a stupid plot to increase his own popularity and to increase iCarly's popularity by extent. There's no way somebody wouldn't have been suspicious as to why Freddie's comment made Fred stop making videos, even with Fred explicitly stating how Freddie was the reason he would stop uploading. There's no way Fred as popular as he had never received a single hate comment, especially considering how annoying his videos can be. And if he couldn't take a single hate comment (which wasn't even close to being a hateful comment), then he had absolutely no business being online and making videos. And after the gang travelled all the way to where Fred lived and Fred revealing his ulterior motives behind the whole brouhaha, instead of Fred apologizing about everything he put the gang through, Freddie especially, he and Sam forced Freddie to utter an apology over an innocuous comment. Talk about adding insult to injury. So yeah, overall, a horrible episode.
PROS:
Be that there is very little to like about this episode, this episode does present itself with a few saving graces.
1. This episode did have a rather understandable storyline, it's just that the story itself sucked horrible.
2. Spencer walking out of the elevator with an ostrich and a smoothie and Freddie screaming will never not be funny.
3. The sketch with Fred and iCarly was kinda funny. Not very funny. Kinda funny.
I think this episode would work a lot better if it was a coincidence that Fred stopped posting videos after Freddie said that his videos weren't very funny. ICarly could be losing viewers and receive the occasional hate comment. Then the gang could get all bent out of shape and resort to traveling to his home as a Hail Mary to recover their reputation. It could be revealed that Fred saw the iCarly episode and went on vacation for a while. He could clear up the situation by appearing on iCarly. Would this have been a spectacular episode? Probably not. But it would have been a pretty decent episode and definitely better than this mess.
Charmed: Morality Bites (1999)
The Wrong Thing Done for the Right Reason...
I feel like this episode should be rated much higher than it already is. It is a phenomenal episode that showcases the splendor and everything wonderful about Charmed. This episode strays from the show's somewhat formulaic premise of the show by focusing more on the characters and their attributes rather than their powers and battles. A peeved Piper explains that she stepped in her neighbor's dog poop despite she and her sisters informing their neighbor about this issue. Phoebe then persuades Prue to use her powers to fling the dog's feces on the neighbor's shoes. This is an abuse of their powers, but it's just a small misdemeanor, they reasoned, it didn't matter, or at least so they thought. Convinced that she committed a good deed, Phoebe rewards herself by watching television. When flipping through channels, she stops at Cal Greene, a fictitious baseball player, and then she gets a horrifying premonition of herself being executed, modern Salem Witch Trials style, ten years into the future. Then, the sisters hatch a plan to travel to the future to learn why Phoebe was ordered to be executed. However, the spell goes awry: firstly, they were meant to travel two weeks prior to the execution; they travelled about eight hours before it. Secondly, time travel into the future doesn't work like it does into the past, for instead of spectating events of the future, they assume the corporeal forms of their future selves. Prue becomes a wildly successful and rich workaholic, plus she's blonde. Piper is a divorced mother. And Phoebe is about to die. After a few mishaps and learning about what they had missed for ten years and Prue blowing up half the attic with a small hand gesture, Prue and Piper devise a plan to bust Phoebe out of prison, and run into Leo, catching him up on the events that transpired. A confused Phoebe then learns of what she had done to warrant her execution when Leo orbs in to inform her of what happened the last ten years, even with the help of the Elders giving her a premonition of what she did. She murdered Cal Greene, the baseball player, with her powers because he killed someone she loved. Oh, by the way, each of the sister's powers greatly augmented in the ten years: Prue, through a small gesticulation, effortlessly blew up half the attic. Piper's freezing ability now affected people and objects in a far greater radius. Phoebe could levitate and used some unnamed ability to "electrocute" or overload Greene's brain with feelings or memories, which is how she killed him. After some events, the sisters arrive in the nick of time to save their sister. However, Phoebe convinced them to let her be executed, because this is how things were meant to be. After Phoebe dies, she and her sisters return to their time and learn about the consequences of using their powers for their own interests.
In addition to the captivating and refreshing plot, this episode was superb for a number of other reasons.
1) Prue blowing up the attic was so much fun to watch. Just wow.
2) The tangents of each sister serve as a reflection of their personalities and traits- Prue becoming a workaholic based on her industriousness and borderline obsession with her line of work; Phoebe being a executed for murdering Cal Greene being tied to her impulsiveness and willingness to take action, Piper's failed marriage and child being based on her romance with Leo and her being the most grounded out of the three sisters.
3) The sisters leading separate lives depicts how they lost their connection not only with their destiny but their bond with each other as years carried on was a nice touch to the story. It deepened the underlying story and reinforced the sense of each of the sisters changing not necessarily for the better.
4) This episode teaches only the sisters that abusing powers can be a very slippery slope. This episode also teaches the audience of the dangers of falling down a rabbit hole and losing yourself and how one seemingly harmless thing could eventually lead to calamitous consequences if you are not careful.
Overall, if I could, I'd rate this episode 1000/10!
Charmed: Something Wicca This Way Comes (1998)
The Power of Three Will Set Them Free (and Up for a Whole Lotta Trouble)
Reflecting back on this episode, it definitely was tamer than the vast majority of other episodes, and the conflict didn't really take off until the last quarter of the episode. However, that's what I like about this pilot episode. The show doesn't just rush the viewer into something and expect them to immediately be able to connect the dots. Instead, this episode was meant to not only serve as a means for communicating how the three Halliwell sisters came to be the most powerful witches ever known, but as a buffer to ease the audience into the series. The writers did a fantastic job at moving along the story at a pace slow enough to enable the exposition to adequately establish various aspects of each of the three sisters and other important characters without but not so excruciatingly slow that the viewer has to constantly fight against the urge to sleep. I would also like to point out is that this episode established various aspects of the three protagonists without overwhelming the viewer with extraneous details. I believe that it is important for a series to not establish too much regarding characters, their history, significant events, past relationships, in the first episode, in order to prevent the series from feeling forced and to allow for these characteristics and details to be revealed and be built upon as the characters progress further into the overarching story.
I must commend each of the three actresses for their portrayal of their respective characters for not only elevating their characters in terms of depth, but being able to bounce off each other and match each other's energies, thus giving for a really organic sisterly feel to the episode and to the series.
One last thing I would like to address is their powers in that while each sister feels powerful, they aren't overwhelmingly powerful, which is something I don't see in very many supernatural and fantasy movies and television shows. Moreover, their powers grow as their character grows, which is something that always resonated with me as I watched this series. I bring this up because this helps to keep the series grounded and realistic, even though it is a show about three witches with supernatural powers.
Overall, for the reasons listed above, I give this episode 10/10 stars.
Charmed: Is There a Woogy in the House? (1999)
"You Cannot Have This Halliwell"
I really enjoyed this episode. So, this episode starts off just after an earthquake strikes San Francisco. The sisters are fine, but they want to ensure that everything is properly functioning, so they call a repairman. He goes into the basement and notices a strange crevice in the floor. Out of curiousity, he pried open the crack and the Woogyman (what Phoebe called the Boogyman when she was very young) and was possessed by it. Not much time passes until Phoebe, after being teased by her two sisters about the Woogyman, comes down to help the repairman (at least I think that's what happens, I don't really remember this part all that well). Inevitably, she is possessed by this Woogyman and slowly turns evil. At this point, everything goes increasingly awry. At first, Piper and Prue experience small electrical shocks when entering various thresholds of the manor. However, these shocks and other anomalies become increasingly apparent. Then in a shocking turn of events, Phoebe banished her own sisters from the manor, indicating the Woogyman taking over her thoughts and actions. After acquiring a bit more information about the Halliwell Manor, the two sisters devise a plan to reenter their home. Chaos ensues when the house's evil spreads to neighbors houses. After consulting the Book of Shadows, the Piper and Prue remember that their grandmother told a story about the Boogyman. However, they were unable to recall what was said to defeat it. As they are trying to recall what was said, Phoebe finds them and tries to kill them. The two sisters run away from her but are cornered in the basement where they have nowhere left to go. At the climax of this episode, Phoebe touches a framed photo of her grandmother by the threshold of the basement where she received a premonition of her grandmother fighting the Woogyman. She then gathers the strength to resist the Woogyman's tight grip and recites the vanquishing spell at the end of their grandmother's story:
"I am light,
I am one too strong to fight;
Return to dark where shadows dwell,
You cannot have this Halliwell;
Go away and leave my sight,
And take with you this endless night!"
Everything returns back to normal after uttering the rhyme as any damage done to the house's infrastructure and decorations is reversed and everyone whom the Woogyman possessed was free from its hold.
As much as I loved this episode, I must admit there was one thing that bothered me about it. Phoebe was born in the Halliwell manor, which was revealed to have been built not only equidistant from the five spiritual elements, but in the middle of a pentagram, thus serving as a spiritual nexus. Because of being born on a spiritual nexus, she is unique in the sense that she is more easily lured to either side of the perpetual conflict between good and evil. However, she was the one who not only exhibited the most resistance in turning evil when compared to everyone else the Woogyman had possessed, but she was able to but she was able to stave off this evil and other aberrations in behavior for several hours. Despite this, I found the episode to be refreshing take on every child's nightmare, and I highly encourage you all to watch this episode.
Charmed: Déjà Vu All Over Again (1999)
A Truly Charmed Season Finale
Note: This review contains some spoilers for future episodes. Please be wary of this.
The episode was superb. Although there were a few flaws in the episode (i.e., Inspector Rodriguez shooting a cuckoo clock in public during broad daylight for everyone to see. Seriously, what the hell was he thinking?!), this episode kept me continually engaged and I found myself at the edge of my seat. The writers of this episode did a splendid job at upping the ante and differentiating this episode from all previous ones by showing us that the Charmed Ones are not dealing with the run-of-the-mill demon and established in the first scene, pre-opening credits that there will be consequenceS.
I appreciate how Phoebe was immediately suspicious about the time loop given her premonition powers, but I also appreciate how Prue was kind of aware of the time loop which I think is due to her characteristics and her psychic power.
Another minor detail I appreciate is every time Prue spoke with Andy in the park, her interactions with him changed as they progressed further into the time loop:
- 1st day in time loop: "Andy, you know how much I still care about you."
- 2nd day in time loop: "Andy, you know how much I still love you."
- Last day in time loop: "Andy, I would literally die if anything happened to you." (Spoiler: This did NOT age well (*cough* Season 3 Episode 22 *cough*)).
(Note: I don't remember exactly what she said those three days, but I do remember that her quotes were along the lines of my paraphrasing.)
As much as I love Andy, and as salty as I am about his demise, I still believe that his death was meant to happen since his fate was set in stone as a tragic hero, and that Piper couldn't have frozen Rodriguez without Andy making a distraction since he could adjust to Piper's freezing power by anticipating it.
Some other things I loved about this episode:
"We're not killers, but we're no angels either." Powerful quote by Prue.
The song selection, "Calling All Angels" for Andy's funeral could not have been better.
Prue starting a tradition (a door closing at the end of the season finale) lasting the whole series when she telekinetically closes the door.
Overall, the writers, directors, producers, actors, and actresses worked in conjunction to make this episode a truly memorable and "charmed."