We should admit nostalgia is choking us all to death.
Now hes developedChilling Adventures of Sabrina, a blistering reconsideration of the Teenage Witch.
Forget the smirking 1960s comic-book character and the blissful family-of-women 90s sitcom starring Melissa Joan Hart.
Credit: Diyah Pera/Netflix
In 2018, teens have nothing to smile about, soKiernan Shipkas sorceress lives in two traumatizing worlds.
At regular high school, one friend gets bullied; another protests a book-banning.
The hoof-horned Dark Lord demands that young witches sign their name in his book on their 16th birthday.
Its a gender-abasing Faustian bargain.
He gives her power if she gives him everything.
I want freedom and power, Sabrina declares, raging against her archaic machine.
SabrinasAunt Zelda(Miranda Otto, igniting bloodthirsty Joan Collins realness) is a true believer.
But kindlyAunt Hilda(wonderful Lucy Davis) has doubts.
Recalling her own initiation, Hilda waxes the opposite of nostalgic.
Us girls didnt have any options back then, she says.
Its just simply what was done.
When I heard that line in episode 2, I was sold.
The rest of this derivative, Netflix-bloated season gave me buyers remorse.
The sagas unmistakably Potterized.
Sabrina is an orphaned Mudblood, errr, half-breed who attends magic school with predatory Slytherish aristocrats.
She seeks vengeance against some athlete tormentors with a honeypot scam requiring teen-girl-squad disrobing.
Thats a reused oldRiverdaleplot and an example of how the show balances feminist fire with deflating PG-16 provocations.
And Sabrina has a Sabrina problem.
The production designs a retro fantasia Polaroids and cigarette holders and a local theater playingNight of the Living Dead.
This will hit big in ourStranger Things-less October.
