Rewatch: Sabrina the Teenage Witch
I’ve been on a nostalgia kick recently, mainly for TV shows and movies from the 90s, and that led me to rewatching Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
At the time of writing this I am almost done with the 5th season, and it hit me how differently I feel about season five now, than how I felt about it back in the day. These episodes aired back in 2000 – 2001, and I haven’t seen them since then.
In season five Sabrina goes off to a college, which is across town from her home. She decides to take the opportunity to movie out, and experience college life, away from her aunts. But of course, as 90s TV often did, her aunts found ways to still be in her life. Brainy Aunt Zelda becomes a professor at the same college Sabrina is attending, and Aunt Hilda, who bought a clock show in the previous season, ends up buying the coffee shop Sabrina works at. Salem is, of course, finding ways to show up whenever he can in Sabrina’s life. I remember watching it back in the early 00s, looking forward to each episode, and wishing Harvey might come back.
It made sense for the show to have Sabrina move on to college, have a job, and work on starting her own life. When I saw it at the time I was completely fine with it, and technically I still am, but now I find myself mostly missing the days when she was in high school, dating Harvey, and living with her Aunts, as all kinds of crazy things happened around them. One thing I noticed now, that I didn’t when it aired, is that the magic portion of the show seems to be way more toned down than in previous seasons. The feel of the show clearly changed in season 5, it was more like a normal sitcom of a girl and her (mostly) normal adventures in love, friendships, and school. She just also happens to be a witch. It felt like a lot of the magical quirkiness was gone.
As far as the next two seasons go… I don’t remember them. I know I watched it every week, and I do remember what happens in the final episode, but other than that I don’t think the final seasons left a big impression on me. I still remember feeling sad the show was ending, it had been a part of my life for seven years, but it was definitely time for it to end (also, she wasn’t exactly a “teenage witch” anymore).
Maybe it’s my nostalgia speaking, but overall, I still love the show. It’s just some good cheesy, family fun. I’ll even overlook the fact that in the pilot episode, in 1996, Sabrina had just turned 16, but was somehow she was still in high school by the fourth season, in 1999, when she would be 19.
Also, I had somehow forgotten about this, and I don’t know how. No one should ever forget the pancake addiction episode, complete with musical number…
