The original Charmed series ran from 1998 to 2006, but in 2018 the CW rebooted it with three new actresses and a new story. While a lot has changed between the original and the reboot, there are a few key elements that remained true to the source material.
The sisters and the Power of Three are still the lifeblood of the show, but the Vera and Vaughn sisters are completely different from the Halliwells. Regardless, these ladies still kick butt and bring magic to the TV screen. Here are five things the Charmed reboot kept the same and five it changed.
KEPT THE SAME: Names Beginning With the Same Letter
In the original series, the sisters were Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and later after Prue's death a mysterious fourth sister, Paige. Middle sister Piper even named her club "P3" after the idea of the Power of Three and how it related to her sisters. The reboot changed the names to Macy, Mel, and Maggie (no surprise fourth sister yet), but kept the theme of the same first letter. Alliteration is key in spell casting and making magic. Their names also match their mother's, Marisol Vera.
CHANGED: Magic and Cultural Background
It's revealed in the first season that Macy and Maggie share a father, Dexter Vaughn, making them mixed race. Mel, who thought she shared a father with Maggie all her life, has a Latinx father. These cultural changes made the reboot more diverse, as well as changed the language of their magic. The magic itself is not based in Latinx roots of brujeria, but the sisters do get to use Spanish, their second language, to cast some spells. Moments like Maggie sharing her mother's coquito recipe with Harry add a layer the original series was missing.
KEPT THE SAME: The Sisters' Respective Powers
In both the original and the reboot, each sister has a specific power. The eldest sisters, Macy and Prue, are telekinetics while the middle sisters, Mel and Piper, can freeze and speed up time. Both of the youngest sisters, Phoebe and Maggie, are empaths with psychic abilities. The reboot changed the manifestation of each sister's power and tweaked how they were portrayed, but the concept of each magical power stayed the same. The original Charmed showed Phoebe first as psychic and then an empath, while the reboot switched it for Maggie.
CHANGED: Aged Them Down
In the original series, the sisters were a little older and already career women. The reboot aged down the sisters so that the youngest was still a sophomore in college while Mel worked as a teaching assistant at the same college her sister attends and where her mother used to be a professor. Macy meanwhile works in a science lab as an established researcher. The Halliwells, for the most part, had their lives figured out before their powers came along. The Veras are still finding their way.
KEPT THE SAME: Whitelighter
Both versions of Charmed gave the sisters a magical guidance counselor called a whitelighter. The original's name was Leo while the reboot's name is Harry. The series from the 90s portrayed Leo as Piper's love interest and it seems the reboot is heading in the same direction with Harry. Except the reboot has the forbidden whitelighter and witch romance between the eldest sister, Macy, and Harry.
Their origin stories differ slightly. Both died in battle in service to the military during war, but Harry's past had him leave behind a wife and son.
CHANGED: Macy's Origins
Macy Vaughn is the eldest sister in the reboot, but she shares certain qualities with Paige Matthews from the original series. Both are lost sisters and both are only half-witch. While Paige was half-whitelighter because Patty had an affair with her whitelighter Sam, Macy is half-demon because of a deal Marisol made when she was a baby. Macy was stillborn so Marisol and Dexter had a necromancer bring her back, but at a cost. Macy would forever have demon blood in her veins and Marisol could never see her again.
KEPT THE SAME: The Elders
Both versions of Charmed had a council of wise magical beings called the Elders. The Elders controlled whitelighters and intervened whenever the Charmed Ones were straying from the path of their destinies. In both the original and the reboot the Elders turned out more sinister than the good guys thought.
However, while the destruction of the Elders' council came at the end of the original Charmed series, their deaths came at the end of season one in the reboot. Fans can't help but wonder where the show is going next.
CHANGED: The Mother's Death
In the 90s series, the Charmed Ones' mother Patty Halliwell died in the past before Phoebe even got the chance to know her mom. Prue and Piper had vague memories of her in their childhoods. Patty was killed by a water demon at a camp lake. The reboot shows the mother still alive with Maggie and Mel but killed by an invisible entity as she's thrown out the attic window. Marisol Vera saw her death coming and unbound her daughters' powers before she died.
KEPT THE SAME: The Youngest Loves a Half-Demon
The original Charmed gave Phoebe an epic love story between her and Cole Turner, a half-demon moonlighting as a lawyer. The reboot shows Maggie falling for Parker Caine, the son of Alastair, a powerful demon. Both bad boy love interests are half-human which makes them capable of falling in love. Both Phoebe and Maggie share the characteristic of being hopeless romantics and seeing the good in people. Thus far, neither seem to get their happily-ever-after with their half-demon boyfriends. In the original, Phoebe killed Cole herself. In the reboot, Parker leaves of his own accord.
CHANGED: Mel's Romantic Preferences
In the 90s Charmed was a product of its time, characterizing everyone as heterosexual. In the reboot, the middle sister Mel is portrayed as a lesbian. She is first romantically linked to a detective named Niko Hamada and later with half-whitelighter Jada Shields, a member of the Sarcana. In the current season, Mel's will-they-won't-they love interest is a local Wiccan named Katrina. While hers is the only queer main character so far on the show, there is great potential to introduce more than on the original series.