●●●○○

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina only basically resembles the 90s sitcom Sabrina The Teenage Witch, using most of its central characters and its ‘half-witch half-mortal’ storyline. From its trailer we were promised scares, slaughter and sorcery, but the proposed ‘darkness’ of the new show doesn’t extend very far beyond its relentlessly moody lighting.

Its aesthetic, while darker and more developed than that of the original, was pleasing but offered little in the way of change when compared to other Netflix originals. Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) sports a ‘red coat look’ which suits the revamped series – though the Red Riding Hood homage in no way offers anything new. The blurry shots, a hallmark of the opening episodes, are quickly swapped out for some Riverdale-esque visuals; the two are essentially sister shows, sharing creators as well as similar tastes in colour and lighting (and several needless, heavy-handed references). Ironically, the opening credits of Sabrina – which appear to be a tribute to the 2014 comics of the same name – are the show’s most original aesthetic addition.

The series’ first few installments were undoubtedly its weakest as the predictable dilemma facing Sabrina and her ‘dark baptism’ came to a swift and unsurprising conclusion. However, as the plot progresses, the focus shifts from Sabrina’s satanic sweet sixteen to wider plot concerns. Episode five is unquestionably a filler episode, as all the members of the Spellman household are trapped in their nightmares by a demon. It adopts a trope found in several popular fantasy shows, including Buffy The Vampire Slayer episodes ‘Nightmares’ and ‘Restless’ and Charmed’s ‘Dream Sorcerer’ and ‘Sand Francisco Dreamin’’.  Later in the series, two of the “Weird Sisters” – Agatha (Adeline Rudolph) and Dorcas (Abigail F. Cowen) – cause a mining accident which leads to Sabrina toying with necromancy. Her failure to fully commit to the act of black magic and the sacrifice it entails means her actions have no lasting consequences. The story which follows isn’t cheerful, but it doesn’t feel wholly menacing, either. The unwillingness to taint Sabrina’s lily-white character means the show, which features elements of the horror genre like Satanism, necromancy and murder, never feels truly dark. The show’s potential malevolence is never truly realised due to its failure to commit. The only character who actually commits murder on-screen is a literal demon. While this messy necromancy storyline neatly finds its way back to the predicament surrounding the ‘dark baptism’, the ending of the series couldn’t be more clichéd if it tried.

Sabrina was released in the run-up to Halloween and was advertised as a gory, mature adaptation of the coming-of-age 90s sitcom Sabrina The Teenage Witch. The “halfway house of wayward witches”, as a rebooted Aunt Zelda (Miranda Otto) despairingly titles the new setting of the Spellman Mortuary, replaces the suburban paradise of its 90s counterpart, providing an intriguing (albeit unsurprising) backdrop to the new show. The newly-incarnated Zelda and Hilda, for me, certainly outshone the lovable albeit slightly hackneyed aunts of the original, Lucy Davis (The Office UK version, Wonder Woman) and Miranda Otto (Lord of the Rings, What Lies Beneath), offering a weird and wonderful dichotomy; their relationship is adapted from the sitcom to feature its own dark complexities. Sabrina soaks up all the high school drama, complicated friendships and family intricacies of the original, without any of the comic punch. It guts the original’s charisma, introducing dark magic and bloodiness in its place.

Many of Sabrina’s best features are characters not from the 90s original. To me, cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo) – who floats around the house conveniently offering sage advice to our blonde-bobbed lead – stood out. Several episodes in, it is revealed he is bisexual, a detail which stands in contrast to the all-to-common trend of bi-erasure in TV – it is a crime even greats like Buffy, another high-profile show with 90s roots, are guilty of.

While the performance of lead Shipka was consistently serviceable, it didn’t touch upon the easy appeal and wittiness of Melissa Joan Hart’s iconic performance in the role. A lack of comedy could be explained for this shortcoming, but even in a darker setting her character felt underutilised and her performance underwhelming. The stakes were raised for the all-new Sabrina, but they fell once again by casting her as an irritatingly-good-at-everything character cliché. Her character, as well as that of Tommy Kinkle (her boyfriend Harvey Kinkle’s older brother, played by Justin Dobies), felt at points more like a type than an actual well-rounded person. Kinkle in particular felt literally too good to be true, at one point it is explained that Tommy’s dream in life was that his younger brother’s dreams, not his own, would come true.

Despite this, the diversity of the new series builds upon the limitations of the original characters, though the loss of droll, quick-witted talking cat Salem felt like a tangible blow. The decision to portray Ambrose’s character as a bisexual warlock provides a refreshing change from the token gay or black best friend, though this trope is arguably still applicable to character Ros (Jaz Sinclair). Tati Gabrielle plays one of the show’s new characters, Prudence, sublimely. Her presence is one of the strongest and most original of the series; she is a talented witch, a Satanist and a high school mean girl all in one. She and Sabrina start off as enemies, quickly reminding the audience of the worn-out new girl vs popular girl cliché, but the relationship between the two develops as they collaborate on “tormenting mortal boys”. Witchcraft and a feminist message are intertwined: the idea of sisterhood is blatant as Sabrina, Ros and Susie (Lachlan Watson) set up a female empowerment group aptly titled W.I.C.C.A.

The show is crammed with metaphors for female empowerment and rebelling against patriarchal totalitarianism. The Church of Night (the coven Sabrina is supposed to commit to at her ‘dark baptism’) and its High Priest, Faustus Blackwood (Richard Coyle), serve as a looming reminder of the “Dark Lord”, Satan, a male figure to whom all of the witches are subservient. Michelle Gomez’s character (a possessed high school teacher) embodies this as she manipulates events behind the scenes, even threatening the High Priest Faustus that she “feasts on men’s flesh” when he wavers from her demands.

It is understandable that the first season is messy; as a show it is still finding its footing, and as a reboot it has the legacy of a beloved, hugely successful predecessor to compete with. As a show in its own right, it has some interesting original characters, a strong cast and a predictable, but still enjoyable, storyline. The needed exposition for the first season as we are introduced to the main players explains some of its dullness, though Sabrina does little to adapt the stereotypes it is working with. Our lead weasels her way out of predicaments using handy loopholes and lazy writing, with the help of special individuals who just happen to live nearby in the town of Greendale. Shows aimed at teenagers, such as this one, have the potential to appeal to a universal demographic (see Veronica Mars and Freaks and Geeks), but Sabrina’s lack of grit means it barely meets the criteria for its target adolescent market. Perhaps it is the competing desire to create a morbid horror show and also appeal to a wider audience that has made this reboot more monotonous than magical, but hope remains for its next instalment. The open ending left by the events of the season finale have perhaps established the needed platforlm for a darker and more successful sequel season.

All episodes of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina are streaming on Netflix now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybKUX6thF8Q