sabrina the teenage witch season 1 netflix

As with many modern series, the show is often literally too dark to see what’s happening.

That ritual, with a vulnerable Sabrina quivering in fear while surrounded by eerie witch folk, is but one gorgeous tableau. Too bad, toots - it’s a man’s world out there, and shivering teenage virgins kneeling in their white slips while powerful older men anoint their foreheads with blood is just how things go. Like any teenage hero, Sabrina would rather do things her way. Once you enlist in Satan’s service, you can’t have silly sleepovers anymore. She wants to stay in the ordinary world, alongside her doting boyfriend, Harvey (Ross Lynch), and her spunky besties, Roz (Jaz Sinclair) and Susie (Lachlan Watson). But Sabrina doesn’t want to submit to baptism, and she doesn’t want to sign her life over to the Dark Lord. The Devil isn’t just in the details here he’s everywhere, with his clomping hooves and goat head, wreaking gruesome havoc and dispatching his servants to torture and coerce Sabrina into falling in line. Or whatever days “Sabrina” is set in: The show has a ’50s retro aesthetic, from the cars to the crinoline, but modern sensibilities about feminism, gender expression and the costs of serving as Satan’s handmaid. When we meet Sabrina Spellman, she’s carefully crossing days off her calendar, leading to the date where she’s written “16th birthday” and, just underneath that, “dark baptism.” It’s hard being a teenager these days. Netflix’s new spin on the lore of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, starring Kiernan Shipka (“Mad Men”) as our spooky heroine, gets off to a spellbinding start, but over 10 episodes becomes more toil and trouble than it’s worth. “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” is frequently chilling, but it’s rarely much of an adventure.

Sabrina the teenage witch season 1 netflix