Sabrina Grew Up.

Morning, Fam…

So, who remembers Sabrina, the Teenage Witch with Melissa Joan Hart on TGIFs on ABC back in the day.  Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina ain’t that show, based on a comic series, and was supposed to be a sister series of sorts to CW’s Riverdale until Netflix picked it up.

Kiernan Shipka takes the mantle from Hart.  Like the show in the day, Sabrina fights the witch side of her (shades of Half-Blood Prince from Harry Potter, anyone?).  All the OG show’s characters’re present and accounted for including her aunts, Hilda (Lucy Davis) and Zelda (Miranda Otto), Sabrina’s would-be boyfriend, Harvey (Ross Lynch), and her cat, Salem, however, Salem doesn’t speak like he did in the OG show.  The themes such as good and bad, friendship and family, the difference between honesty and loyalty are still in tact.

That’s where the similarities in the shows end.

CAoS, though TV-14’s, very dark with direct references to the devil and onscreen killing…and, NOT PG-13 bloodless killing, mind you.  As a matter of fact, I read the Temple of Satan sued Netflix for their use of a statue of Baphomet that’s in one of their churches for the show without their permission.  The article had one of the scenes in question along with the original statue.  It was a carbon copy.  Next season, the show has to give a nod to the Temple among some undisclosed monetary love.

Aside from that tidbit I read, Netflix’s iteration caters to the older demo that probably caught the show remembering the OG show.  Ooh yeah, another throwback the older demo might catch’s Bronson Pinchot from Perfect Strangers, another TGIF alum, playing George Hawthorne, Baxter High's principal.

We liked it, because of the nostalgia and the way this iteration took it to a darker, more adult level, but I could see where it might be off putting to some audiences with its overt talk about the occult and Satanism.  Hell, Satan’s represented in Madam Satan played by Michelle Gomez, who takes the guise of Sabrina’s fave teacher, Ms. Wardwell, whose sole purpose’s to get Sabrina ready to be Satan’s righthand man.

Whatever your leanings, I’ll let you make up your mind on giving the show a chance.  For those of us who remember the OG Sabrina, but don’t want to tread in the kiddie pool doing it or if you’re curious, check it.

Be good to each other.

-J-