DVD Review: Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Sixth Season

To be frank, the thought in my head as the credits brought the first episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Sixth Season to a close was, “Well, this did not age well.”

Perhaps it is because the episode features a fanged vampire in a cape  who clearly can only fly with the help of suspension cables, not a hunky bloodsucker with sparkly skin, the current trend in vampire fantasy, but the shows initially felt like they hailed from a bygone era, more remote than the 2001-2002 television season from whence they actually came.

This thought surprised me, because I had watched Sabrina on and off for the better part of a decade; never a die-hard fan, but certainly someone who found the show to be a reliable source of mind-relaxing entertainment, in the best sense of the term. At first, I thought Sabrina simply might not make sense in the present age, an atavism in the world of teen television. I mean, there are no pregnancy scares, mean girl manipulations, or even much of a love triangle.

Yet, this initial hesitant disappointment did not stop me from watching a second episode. And then a third… and soon I found that, somewhat to my surprise, I was getting hooked. Its very abnormality when compared to dramas of the present day became endearing, and, although I mostly watched it as a dissipating diversion and for the comedic scenarios offered in each episode, such as Sabrina’s addiction to “Cloud 10” or possible smiting by Zeus, there were times that I actually popped in the next episode because I wanted to find out what would happen in the plot.

Soon I realize that Sabrina simply suffers and benefits from the same paradoxes that characterize any mainstream show of one’s youth that one revisits it as a 20- or 30-something. These shows don’t have a chance at standing up next to current mainstream culture—the allurement of rapid change is so ingrained in the American consciousness that old-fashioned has become an insult. However, they do have nostalgia, and humor, and sometimes watching an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch: The Sixth Season is the perfect relief from the troubles of the present day.

Article Author: Kerri Shadid

Kerri Shadid has a multifaceted interest in people, in culture, and in art. She recently finished her Master's in Humanities and Social Thought at New York University. She has undergraduate degrees from the University of Oklahoma in Letters and Political …

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