Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Soul Mates

June 11, 2015May 25, 2015 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 3 Comments

Sabrina wakes up on the morning of her wedding with cold feet. They’re frozen in blocks of ice. She admits that maybe she’s a little anxious because most of her family can’t be at her wedding and she kind of wishes that Harvey could be there (but he can’t because it’s too weird). Things are clearly not fine even though she promises that they are.

But her cousin Amanda (played by Melissa Joan Hart’s real life sister) is there and soon her Aunt Hilda arrives too. Aunt Hilda brings Sabrina’s mom disguised as a lama as a wedding present. She’s recently been liberated from the ball of wax due to some unexpected leniency from the witch’s counsel. Then Aunt Hilda presents Sabrina with a candle. Her Aunt Zelda has agreed to be wax in place of Sabrina’s mom for the duration of the wedding.

Sabrina returns to her room to get ready with renewed confidence. But she finds doubt sitting on her bed. Sorry, that’s Doubt with a capital D. He’s a person and he’s brought her fiancee Aaron’s soul star. He believes Sabrina is doubting that she and Aaron are soul-mates and he hoping this will help. But they only way to tell if they’re soul-mates or not is to see if their stars fit together. Doubt didn’t bring Sabrina’s star to her (jerk) so she has to go to the North Star to get it.

The soul stars almost fit together, but not completely. And try as she might, Sabrina can’t get them to fit. So she and Aaron have a talk, and he tells her he doesn’t really think life guarantees soul-mates but that they love each other and will try to make each other happy. This convinces Sabrina to go ahead with the wedding.

Just as she is about to walk down the aisle, she realizes she is still wearing a bracelet that Harvey gave her seven years prior with the exact time they met engraved in the band. How could you not remember you were wearing your ex’s gift throughout the entire duration of your engagement, Sabrina??

Sabrina shows up on her Aunt Hilda’s program and asks to speak to her and Mother Spellman STAT. They try to walk down the aisle as discretely as possible, but Sabrina’s stupid friends leave the alter to join the chat too. This is such a nightmare. Sabrina starts bemoaning the fact that the universe has been against this relationship from the start, and her mom and aunt tell her that she’s the only one dooming it to fail. They tell her to listen to what she really wants.

Sabrina decides once again that she will marry Aaron. Only, she can’t make it through her vows. So she breaks up with Aaron at the alter while her friends hide them behind her veil. As Sabrina leaves the church, she sees Harvey sitting on his bike with his soul star (retrieved by Amanda from the North Star). She runs up to him and they start making out, apparently not concerned by the fact that the man she jilted moments ago is just inside the door with all of his friends and family.

Luckily, it’s only Sabrina’s family and friends who end up standing on the church steps to see Harvey and Sabrina fit their soul stones together and ride off into the sunset (err, midday sun…) right at 12:36 exactly.

Very Special Lesson: If you wake up in the morning with cold feet. Stop there. Don’t ruin the day for everyone.

Eight Days a Week

October 23, 2014October 23, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

I know I said Halloweek would start tomorrow, but then I watched the Sabrina the Teenage Witch reunion, so surprise, I’m posting today!

Melissa and Joey: Witch Came First

JOEY LAWRENCE HAS BLONDE HAIR? WHAT? This is starting off very poorly.

However, Beth Broderick has the most soothing voice ever, so I’ll deal with it. Beth Broderick (a.k.a. Aunt Zelda) shows up at Melissa’s house and tells her that she’s not really a gynecologist (Mel thinks she is her gynecologist). It turns out that Mel grew up in the other realm under Dr. Raddler’s care, but Dr. Raddler put her under a spell in the mortal realm to save the other realm from the dark lord.

Unfortunately, the Dark Lord has risen and Mel needs to use her special powers to protect the other realm. Dr. Raddler gives her a sparkly cell phone called a “Spell Phone” that has an “Ebook of incantations.” Mel has a bit of trouble using her powers until some blond girl (who I think is her daughter and is named Lennox) complains that her costume is not cat-like enough. Mel wishes that she was the most realistic cat ever and turns her into an actual cat kind of like Salem.

The dark lord shows up in Mel and Joey’s house in the form of a possessed animatronic halloween doll. Even though Mel is still figuring out her powers, she is so powerful that she manages to disarm him. Joey also strong arms him and then they argue about who really defeated him.

In the meantime, Joey has accidentally chased Lennox off the lawn (she had to pee) so Mel goes outside to look for her. When he tries to move the dark lord’s corpse, Joey becomes possessed by the dark lord. Did you guys know that you can say bitch on ABC Family now? I learned that you can because Mel calls Joey (the dark lord) a bitch when he throws a butcher knife and ruins her custom maple cabinets.

Luckily, Mel has managed to turn Lennox back into a human kind of (she looks like one of the cast members from Cats but that costume is her actual body). Lennox has the answer to their problems. She tells Mel that all she has to do to kill the dark lord is tell Joey that she loves him. (The power of love, duh.) The Joey kind of but not really dies because he says that he and the dark lord cannot both live, but Mel revives him with a kiss. Then she decides to lose her powers forever so that she can live in the mortal realm with her family. Aw. Love.

Very Special Lesson: I expected this to suck and it didn’t. Woah! Happy Halloween, guys!

News Flash: Sabrina The Teenage Witch Returns Tonight!

October 22, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 4 Comments

Normally, I don’t read ET but I got lured in by news of Renee Zellweger’s face-change. I get it, her body/her choice, Hollywood’s obsession with a narrow definition of “beauty,” the sexist nature of commenting on a woman’s body, (insert reason why I shouldn’t even be writing this sentence here), but honestly I am just shocked by the transformation. And I am 100% confident in saying that I would be shocked and also googling this if any male celebrity, next door neighbor, or my godmother’s cat underwent such a transformation.

While on the ET website I also learned about how Sarah Jessica Parker crossed a “please don’t stand on stairs” sign at Carrie Bradshaw’s brownstone in order to show off her new shoe line, but that’s not what I’m here to tell you about today. The third and final thing I read on the ET website is that there will be a SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH REUNION tonight on Melissa and Joey at 8 pm ET/7 pm CT. This will also be a Halloween episode! Aunt Zelda will be there (no Hilda wahhh major sad face) and also a cat named Warlock, who was the final live-action Salem from the show. The premise will be something along the lines of Melissa has been Sabrina the whole time, but she was put under a spell in order to protect her from the “dark lord,” and thus has no memory of who she really is. I don’t watch Melissa and Joey, so I have no idea if it’s a good show or if this reunion will seriously mess with some continuity, but I think I may check it out tonight. And of course I wanted to alert all of you to the news as well!

ET won’t let me embed videos, so if you want to see the promo then you have to give them a little site traffic.

Sabrina The Teenage Witch: Pancake Madness

June 24, 2014June 24, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

If you were a kid in the ’80’s or ’90’s chances are you saw a lot of very special episodes. You know, that 30 minute comedic romp through things that will totally ruin your life forever but it’s okay because we’ve all learned a valuable lesson and will never again drink/do drugs/go on a crash diet/hide our dyslexia? That emotionally driven, powerfully profound vicarious lesson that made you think, “As God as my witness, I shall NEVER give in to that seductive temptress known as peer pressure! I will overcome my insecurities with the support of my family members, quirky next door neighbor, and this laugh track!” Oh you didn’t think that? That was just me? Well, maybe that’s why I love Very Special Episodes from a very special place of my heart.

But enough about me, remember Melissa Joan Hart? Although her classic ’90’s sitcom (no, not Clarissa, the other one) about Sabrina Spellman’s adolescent transition from average girl to amazing witch was typically light hearted in nature, the show opted to deal with a heavier subject matter in this very special episode.

The day starts off calmly with Sabrina attempting to enjoy a hearty pancake breakfast before school. But before she can take a bite, her aunts whisk the fluffy pancakes away and warn her of their highly addictive nature. Pancakes are in fact so addictive to the Spellman family that they cannot even have a single bite without going on a bender. Sabrina, however, cannot resist the temptation of that syrupy deliciousness.

True to her aunts’ word, the addiction overtakes her quickly. In the very next scene, she goes through the trash at school looking for pancake remnants. The resident mean girl, Libby (did anyone else think she looked vaguely like Monica Lewinsky?) comes by and makes a joke about homeless people (comparing Sabrina to a “bag lady”). But this is a very special episode about addiction not about socioeconomic class relations, so let’s move along here people.

“I’m in the mood for pancakes are you holding?”–Actual Quote

At the end of the school day, Sabrina has the shakes. Witches really can’t handle their pancakes. In the middle of the night, she tries to make them from scratch without magic. She needs a fix fat sabrina ! At school the next day, Sabrina is totally out of control. She finally loses the remaining shreds of her self-control and binges on stacks of buttery carbohydrates at the pancake breakfast prom fundraiser. Then she ends up looking like Violet from Willie Wonka. Now, that is one scary overdose.

But what really sets this episode apart from most sitcoms that deal with addiction is how it deals with detox and withdrawal symptoms, including a super weird dream about attending a pancake themed high school and hallucinating this terrifying syrup-person.

Sabrina's scary friend — Now, that’s enough to scare anyone straight.

At the end of the episode, Sabrina still craves pancakes but she knows that her friends and family are more important than throwing her life away for some silly old pancakes. She knows that hers will be a lifelong struggle but she’s committed to staying away from the pancake crowd. She even stages a catnip intervention with Salem during the closing credits—wait how did this become the most realistic very special episode of them all?

Very Special Lesson: Just say no (to pancakes)