had all this "power" and they only thing they used it for - for the most part - was to play practical jokes. Never used it for anything "good" or for anything positive. Darren did not want her to use her power. But, not even to save a child with cancer? Find a cure for a horrible disease?
shareBewitched was aired once a week. Since the series was a sitcom, the plots were more frivolous. Not shown was what happened the other 6 days of the week when Samantha focused on more serious issues like curing cancer, ending world hunger, bringing a world series win to Chicago Cub fans.
shareLol, good answer. I think I read somewhere that fans were writing in asking why they weren't doing something about the war. Not sure how true that is.
shareSamantha's method for curing world hunger was to Trick or Treat for UNICEF, or, as in one episode, to make a rich businessman who welshed on a $10,000 pledge for UNICEF to cough it up by making him see her face everywhere he looked.
shareYes and she did a lot of charity work the mortal way.
The easiest thing i have ever had to do was give my heart.
Samantha vowed to live a mortal life even though her witchy relatives kept her from having that life. The other witches were hiding their powers from the mortal world so would not interfere in worldly problems. Actually they seemed to live a very pampered life with little regards for the fates of humans.
share" Actually they seemed to live a very pampered life with little regards for the fates of humans."
Kinda like the billionaires and the top 1% lol ... Maybe the Witches had the attitude that most wealthy ppl have, "It's not my problem!" lol
We could actually pose this same question in a REAL WORLD way. Realistically if the extremely rich tycoons like Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Warren Buffet decided to, they could probably EASILY donate enough money to fund a cure for cancer and to wipe out world poverty, and STILL be filthy rich! But no billionaire ever seems interested in doing that, they instead whine and complain about how unfairly they are being taxed.
The 1% are actually witches.
shareAll this has been discussed a lot, "Could Samantha have produced a cure for cancer?", "Could Samantha have eliminated world poverty?", "Could Samantha have fed all the starving kids?", or "Could Samantha have stopped wars?" Etc...and honestly I don't think we're supposed to apply such things for such a show...I doubt back when the show was made they really thought ppl would think that deeply into it.
But some ppl rationalize that maybe it was against the Witches' code of ethics to do anything that interfered with human development as a species. I know there were some things that the Witches were forbidden to do.
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I'm guessing it was against some code of ethics for the witches to eliminate death, and if you eliminated all disease you would essentially eliminate death, even old age is looked at as disease by many.
shareEven as it was, the show seemed to embrace causes such as bigotry, UNICEF, and clean air. I'm not sure if addressing such things was unprecedented in a sitcom until Norman Lear came along. I'm quite certain such responsibilities, however lightly they were touched, were suggested by Elizabeth Montgomery.
shareI think if they'd touched on those issues, they'd have to be careful of a slippery slope, b/c realistically in the Bewitched universe ANY and EVERYTHING could have been solved with Witchcraft! Darrin gets in trouble of any kind, Samantha could just ZAP it out of ppl'd minds and make the FORGET it or set time back a day or 2 before it happened, then there'd be no show lol
shareI'd rather a TV series expressed conservative attitudes sometimes
Another Screen Gems show that embraced potentially controversial and "realistic" themes was the much-maligned THE FLYING NUN.
Despite its' silly premise (that a young novice who weighed 90 lbs could become airborne when the wind was gusty due to the "wing shape" of her order's cornet), I recall the show touching on issues such as:
UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT FAITHS (Carlos Ramirez' Jewish goddaughter wants to become a nun);
ADULT ILLITERACY: (The Convent (Sr. Bertrielle, the Sally Field character) starts an Adult Literacy Class from which an initially reluctant middle aged successful businessman ultimately benefits.
ACCEPTING THE LIMITATIONS OF OLD AGE: (Due to failing eyesight, the Uncle of one of the Nuns can no longer practice his lifelong career as a fisherman. With the Convent's help, he's able to accept his limitation and find success in another line of work).
Of course, as in BEWITCHED, and other Screen Gems comedies of the time, the issues were handled in a lighthearted vein. Still, I don't recall any other comedy of the time, including BEWITCHED, even acknowledging them.
It may be because these things don't appear out of no where. Every "trick" played had consqeuences. When something was acquired it was taken from something else, if I'm not mistaken. Therefore, to cure one person's cancer would mean making another ill, to provide world peace may have meant destruction of some kind in another fashion.
I'm not sure if they did that on purpose or it was accidental, but any 'good witch' understands this law and abides by it.
*no, I'm not a witch*
I know many BEWITCHED fans don't like I DREAM OF JEANNIE, but I remember an episode of JEANNIE that did address this issue somewhat. In it, Jeannie had transferred her powers to Tony for a day. When he found out what she had done, Tony was initially very excited about all the "good" he could do with the powers, saying he might just "stop a war, "flood the Sahara" or "put an Apollo capsule on the Moon."
Jeannie interrupted him, advising caution, and when he asked why she said something like:
"Well, your world is very complicated. If you stop one war you're liable to start ten others and if you flood the Sahara you may empty an ocean. Believe me, Master, it would be much better if you start with something smaller."
Of course, Jeannie may also have said this because the powers were new to Tony and he didn't yet have control over their more subtle use, but it DOES suggest that there could be some serious consequences for using magic on a grand scale.
Maybe it was the same with BEWITCHED. I remember on the episode where Endora put a spell on Tabitha's rocking horse to predict race track winners, she told Samantha that witches aren't allowed to tamper with the future...
This was a major limitation on the witches' and wizards' powers in A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. This was written decades before Harry. There's this whole big thing about Equilibrium, and that's exactly what it means. If you bring rain for your crops, someplace else might not get theirs, and so on.
Well, the city's being built and I'm winning this game. So don't interrupt us with trifles.
It was a sitcom after all and there would've been very little comedy if Sam was curing diseases and world hunger every week.
I got the idea that their powers were somewhat limited. In the first episode Samantha told Darren on their honeymoon, "I can only do little things." Of course that changed and she moved on to bigger magic soon.
Of course some witches like Carlotta (portrayed by Mercedes McCambridge) were supposed to be very powerful. And some witches like Esmeralda were total bunglers. Aunt Clara's powers weakened with age. Just like humans it appeared that witches had different talents, strengths, abilities,etc.
Compared to humans obviously they could do a LOT but they weren't totally omnipotent. Maybe some things were impossible for them. Or they did use their powers a few times on a large scale and made things worse.
>>>>When something was acquired it was taken from something else, if I'm not mistaken. <<<
Actually, you are mistaken. There was never anything in the Bewitched show that implied that something acquired was taken from someone else. That is a concept is some other stories, but not here.
Interesting idea, jut HOW did they acquire things when they zapped them up?
In the first season when Samantha's father visits, he tries to zap up a bottle of wine. It was a very special vintage. But nothing appeared and Maurice said something like, "There is no more left."
At the end of the episode, Darrin produced a bottle of wine from that very same vintage. For a moment he thought that Darrin was "one of us". Obviously Maurice wasn't able to appropriate Darrin's personal property.
So the witches couldn't take another person's property. So how did they make things appear? I wonder.
I didn't recall that episode. But as far as I know that's the only one that implied its taken. Every other use implies that whatever they are making is created. Yes, that implies immense amounts of power, but seems to be the situation.
shareThere's an episode where Endora, at Samantha's urging, "gives" Darrin a brand new cutting edge "car of the future." One that's not even yet off the assembly line. (She sees him admiring the car in a magazine.)
Darrin accepts the "gift," and is initially delighted with it. While he is admiring the car's engine, he sees a plaque stating that the car was manufactured in Detroit and listing a serial number or some other form of identification.
When Darrin congratulates Endora on the "clever touch" of including the manufacturer's information, she knows nothing about it and Darrin quickly figures out she stole the car by zappping it out of the workroom where it was being assembled.
When Samantha upbraids Endora and asks her how she could "steal a car," Endora replies: "How else was I going to get it? I'm a witch, not a car manufacturer (or a mechanic)!"
So it seems that witches and warlocks do take the items they conjure up from other sources, at least some of the time.
I saw that episode recently and I had the idea that Endora *could* have reproduced an exact copy of the car (maybe with some more effort?) but simply zapped the car from the lab to Darrin's driveway.
Since it seemed awful generous for Endora to so something as thoughtful as getting such an amazing car for Darrin, it seemed to me she knew the car would cause complications, or at least that Darrin wasn't worth the effort to reproduce an exact copy.
Just a thought anyway.
I saw that episode recently and I had the idea that Endora *could* have reproduced an exact copy of the car (maybe with some more effort?) but simply zapped the car from the lab to Darrin's driveway.
That wouldn't have been very funny. Plus it would be a bit insensitive i think to show serious illnesses being cured by magic, when there was no hope of such a cure for people in real life.
shareIts the awkward part of the character having that kind of power.
shareThe show itself was 'commenting' on 'mixed marriages' several years before the prohibitions against interracial marriages fell at the Supreme Court.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2015/12/20/bewitched-broke-ground-45-years-ago/77115192/
They probably wanted to balance that out with 'light' stuff.
Plus there is the special effects budget of the early 1960's to consider too. This was when computers far less powerful than a cell phone took up a whole room. so they did not have a lot to work with re 'magic'.
Modern remakes (like charmed!) do more.
Maybe they just couldn't do those things? It would have made for a dull show anyway. Maybe if they rebooted it you could have SJW Samantha fixing the world and it would last a few eps due to everyone getting bored.
share