Leave BEWITCHED alone

I made the mistake of watching THE HISTORY OF THE SITCOM Sunday night on CNN.  I’m like Charlie Brown with the football.  Every chapter pisses me off.  It’s not a history of an art form; it’s a condemnation of television for not being more inclusive.  It's taking TV to task for things it didn't do 50 years ago.  No matter what the topic they find a way to sledge hammer home that agenda.  Oliver Stone is more subtle.  

This week’s topic was “the outsider” in sitcoms.  And metaphorically space aliens were immigrants, and the Munsters were “that family” no one wanted to move to their neighborhood.   

At one point they turned their scorn towards BEWITCHED.  Darrin insisted that Samantha not use her magic.  The strong message that the producers were sending here, of course, is that men stifle women and prevent them from realizing their full potential.  Sneaky, those producers.  

Of course, at the time there were enough domestic sitcoms where the husband clearly didn’t want his wife to work and blatantly said so.  No metaphor was needed.  From I LOVE LUCY to THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW and every DONNA REED SHOW in between, you had that scenario play out.  (OZZIE & HARRIET took things one step farther — neither Ozzie nor Harriet worked.)  

But how about this as an alternate reason why Darrin wanted Sam to not use her magic?  Without that element there is no show.  

If Sam can use her magic at will, where’s the conflict?  Any problem can be solved with a wiggle of the nose.  Darrin has a good reason for keeping her identity a secret.  It’s the same reason all superheroes have.  If word got out she was a witch who could perform magic there would be a line two miles long to her front door of people asking for help.  Any semblance of a normal life would be obliterated.  

Some women say they wish she used her powers more.  I wished Superman flew more and there was less Clark Kent.  But that's the necessary dynamic of the show. 

Oh, and someone having to hold back behavior that is very tempting is a recipe for comedy.  Remember comedy?  

They give Sam a mother who hates Darrin for this, which also is a springboard for conflict and comedy.  There have been many husband vs. mother-in-law shows, but this has the twist that the mother-in-law can turn him into a toad.  

BEWITCHED began as a spin on a romantic comedy.  It became silly and cartoonish, but we’re talking the original conception (back when the producers were “plotting their social injustice storyline”).   But if you go back to the pilot, Samanta herself withheld the information that she was a witch until Darrin had fallen in love with her.  Why?  Well, this is another point THE HISTORY OF THE SITCOM overlooked (because it goes against their theory): Samantha wanted Darrin to love her for who she was, not because she was a witch with magic powers.  So there was a part of Sam that was on board with not turning their Chevy into a Rolls Royce.  

Another point:  At the end of the day when did Samantha not do what she wanted to do?   And when did Darrin really put his foot down?  

The premise gave Elizabeth Montgomery a lot to play.  She had to harness her magic, find other solutions to problems (like real people do), and she was caught in the middle between her husband and her mother.  Keeping her identity secret was also a challenge.  Sam had to contend with Mrs. Kravitz, the nosy neighbor.  These dynamics all created laughs.  

Oh, and one other point that went by so quick I missed it, but THE HISTORY OF THE SITCOM equated Endora’s wardrobe to the drag culture.  But that’s what you get when the so-called experts are TV critics or authors of fan books.  The real experts — William Asher, Sol Saks, Danny Arnold, Elizabeth Montgomery — are sadly no longer with us.  I bet they’d give you a very different explanation for how BEWITCHED came to be and what it set out to achieve.  

But what do you expect from a history of sitcoms that claims that WHO'S THE BOSS? was a groundbreaking show?