Charmed

Even fans of the original who are put out by the significant changes made to their cult-fave witchy TV series will have to admit this reboot has, well, charm. The retooled trio of sisters have chemistry and comic chops, particularly Mel and Maggie, who look like sisters, bicker like sisters, and have each other's back when the chips are down (and demons with giant black eyes are breaking through to your dimension), like sisters. Truth be told, the original Charmed was a silly show, a Buffy knockoff that never reached Buffy's heights of meta-storytelling. But its attraction wasn't that it was great TV, it was that it was fulfilling TV, a sweet fantasy about bad guys who weren't so bad that they couldn't be conquered by a trio of women who had to join together to be truly powerful.

In the #MeToo era, it's a fantasy that's especially attractive, and the new Charmed has particular appeal for a modern woke audience: as an out-and-proud lesbian and feminist, Mel does much of the heavy lifting here, like when she reminds a female partygoer making out on a couch "When it comes to consent you can change your mind at any time." It's a message that might make viewers want to cheer, particularly when it comes around again in the end, when Maggie's able to defeat a former boyfriend/stalker demon who tries to bully her into a fatal kiss by reminding her she'd already kissed him before, so she can't say no now. Wrong! Die, demon! As the sisters join hands and powers and always come up on top, this goofy little show becomes a potent exercise in wish fulfillment.