In 1998, fantasy shows were riding a wave. There was already Buffy, but it catered more to a male audience, so Aaron Spelling filled a hole by creating a version for girls. Charmed is like The Chronicles of Narnia if it were written by the cast of The View. According to an ancient prophecy, three sisters would be born who, when united as three, would defeat the vile forces of the Underworld together as three, using their Power of Three. There are four of them.

	The most powerful witches ever to exist. Prue can force-shove you. Piper can freeze things in midair, and later blow them up. Paige can teleport. Phoebe can see into the future occasionally, and later gains the Power of Heart and can feel the feelings of others. NO ONE ON EARTH IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THIS.

	The Charmed Ones' all-purpose book of spells, filled with deux ex machinas for any situation. Most of the rhymes it holds are so powerful that only the Charmed Ones can activate them, and even then, only in unison. The book was calligraphied by their ancestors, who I'm guessing wouldn't be powerful enough to use the spells either, but they wrote them in there anyway without having a way to test them. This only doesn't make sense to you because your mind is mortal.

	Well, there's Leo. He's the Charmed equivalent of a guardian angel, but doesn't get to do much besides hover around the Charmed Ones and comment on their plans. Kind of a stick in the mud, occasionally literally. If guys want to know how women feel when they watch a mysogynistic movie where the love interest serves no purpose but to fall for the hero, Leo should give you an idea. He's mostly only there to please Piper, and to make the show's female audience annoyed with their boyfriends for not being as perfect as Leo.

	Was introduced as a new neighbor to add some new blood into the aging series, then on its second season. Even more useless than Leo. Was eventually eaten by a demon. But got better. Then disappeared.

	Major player in the pilot (originally belonged to another witch; found the Charmed Ones after they gained their powers; has their family symbol on his collar; featured prominently in the title sequence of every episode). Never mentioned or heard from again past season 2.

	Only existed for one episode, mainly so the girls could make lots of "dick" puns and then giggle afterward. And they call boys the cruder sex.

	This is what they call teleporting, and calling it that would only make sense if you formed a spherical shape when you did it, but you don't. Leo does a lot of this; later Paige can do it so the girls can rely on her and make him even more useless.

	In the Charmed-iverse you are either extremely good or extremely bad. It's even more black and white than in Star Wars. You're born that way, God makes no mistakes. Why are you evil? Because your powers are....somehow. Unless they're not. The Charmed Ones have explained it both ways. It only sounds like a contradiction to you because your mind is mortal.

	If you're evil, you can't, uh, "orb" (hurts to say that) to teleport; you have to simply jump-cut yourself from one area to another like on Bewitched. They call that blinking since it happens in the blink of an eye. See, they have an explanation; what's your excuse, good?

	The WB, and later the CW, has a longstanding tradition of hiring models for their shows instead of actors. They're judge-the-book-by-the-cover kinda people, because they figure their shallow teen audience is the same way (and usually they're right). This might be fine when Leo isn't doing anything but on those rare occasions when he has to carry a scene by himself....well, unintentional comedy insues.

	The Source of All Evil. Ruler of the underworld where all the models in Halloween makeup emerge to try to kill the Charmed Ones. He's got an ugly lookin' face, he's an abomination to the human race. The Halliwells are fated to defeat him. They do that, but rather anticlimactically. He later returns in Season 8 for three minutes and his defeat is even easier. Good thing they're around!

	A demon that Pheobe stupidly dated even though he was planning to kill her (whatever turns her on, I guess). He eventually married and impregnated her, and forced her to swallow vials of glop to turn her fetus evil. But then the fetus was magically transported into the belly of another woman (in the episode "Womb Raider"), and said woman was promptly blown up. Easier on the conscience than an abortion. Cole was the biggest waste of time this show ever had. Several decent plots were ruined by stretches of time when someone had to have a boring conversation with Cole. You knew the Charmed Ones were going to ultimately get rid of him, but it took them seasons to realize they should. He came about during a period when the original show creator left because everybody else wanted to focus more on the boys instead of the sisters. In other words, devote the series to undeveloped characters with no personalities beyond eye candy for the girls. Greeeeeat plaaaaaan.

	An actress that hasn't had any significant work since Charmed. The reason for this is because she quit 90210 mid-series. Then she quit Charmed mid-series. No one will ever trust her again. When she quit Charmed, everyone thought the show was borked because its entire mythology was built around all three sisters staying alive and together. They could have played this up and made a dark, intense story arc out of it (THE BAD GUYS WIN!!) but instead Sister #4 was introduced in ten minutes...

	Paige, Piper and Phoebe: Nine times each. Niiiiiine times.

	At one point they need the advice of Melinda Warren, the original witch from (naturally) Salem, Massachusetts whom their family tree stems from. Turns out there's a spell in the Book of Shadows that can resurrect dead family members. When Prue dies, they forget it's in there.

	A spell to make the Charmed Ones lose their magic. They're blackmailed into using it in Season One. After that incident, they rip the spell out of the book and set the page on fire, so they can never use it again. A few seasons later, Piper is psychologically tormented into almost using the spell again.....which is back in the book...

	Two babies who came out of Piper. Chris actually showed up in adult form before his conception, to hang around Piper and Leo and repeatedly demand they have sex NOW and give birth to him. This almost didn't work.

	Mabel, Mitzi and Margo. The Great Giana Sisters to the Charmed Ones' Mario Bros. One of them is Jenny McCarthy. Used an "Identity Theft Spell" to become them, gain their powers, and depose them. It's apparently as simple as that, but nobody ever thought of it before three bimbos did. Also, nobody ever did this again.

	A far-off year filled with TVs that respond to voice commands and hover cars. Also, the government is burning witches at the stake again. The sisters went forward to this time because Phoebe saw herself getting burned. Turns out she killed a baseball player (It's never explained why she'd do that, but she'd also marry Cole, so hey, why not). She feels so guilty about doing something she didn't actually do yet that she allows her own execution. This only doesn't make sense to you because your mind is mortal. And yes, Prue is there, but contrary to what most believe, she didn't actually die. This episode reveals she turned into Kaley Cuoco. The reason the future is so bad for them is because in the present, they used their powers to lightly punish a man who let his dog poop in their yard. He became the governor of California in Schwarzenegger's place. Thus did they learn to never, ever, EVER use their powers to do anything fun or interesting. Ever!

	Three morally neutral beings who erase evidence of magic as soon as it is exposed, thus keeping the series safe and plausible for real life. They instantly contradicted over half the episodes that existed. If I could have been a fly on the wall when they were cooking this idea up, I would have screamed at them, "I'M A TALKING FLY AND DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT KIND OF A CORNER YOU'RE PAINTING YOURSELVES INTO RIGHT NOW??" Later on, another magical calamity happened and they wondered why the Cleaners couldn't just take care of it. Leo had to pull some contrived excuse out of his enchanted white butt as to why they wouldn't do it. The Cleaners were then forgotten and never mentioned again.

	Some more people who pop out of nowhere in Season 7 to bring peace to Earth by removing free will. Kinda like the banned Powerpuff Girls episode you have to buy the Complete Set to see. Except that's done as an awesome rock opera; this not so much.

	Like a black hole, only for magic; The Hollow is a dangerous dark force that can only be safely contained in a cigar box with sequins on it. Only two people guard the thing, which didn't turn out to be wise. Whoever draws power from The Hollow gains all the powers it's absorbed, but if The Hollow is allowed to grow this way it'll consume and destroy the world, and almost did at some long-ago ancient time. For a show like Charmed, The Hollow is a pretty inspired Tolkienesque idea, and it's one of the few elements the writers didn't just forget about and contradict later.

	It's this school, and you learn magic in it. And it doesn't have an actual name, or at least a good one. Also seems to consist of the same two or three rooms every time it appears.

	Leo said in season 3 that Pandora's Box is a myth, but based on a real box that works differently. In Season 7, the actual Pandora's Box showed up. This only doesn't make sense to you because your mind is mortal.

	An episode from a later season involved some of the Charmed Ones turning into Hindu gods, which probably didn't play well in India, if it ran there at all. By merely using something on this show, you're insinuating it's make-believe. There aren't many Hindus in the States to tick off, but sheesh, I would be more careful. Of course, later Supernatural would throw all caution out the window by openly using and distorting just about every faith and mixing them with mummies and leprechauns.

	(aka Prue, see "2009")
	All the fans hate Billie for "ruining" the show. Their big issue is that she's more powerful than the Charmed Ones and that's not supposed to happen! Never mind that almost every enemy they've ever faced can do things like transform them, fry their internal organs, belch huge fireballs, make their worst nightmares come true, and control time, and what can they do? Freeze objects? Move them? (They have hands for that.) "Feel others' feelings"? Of course Billie is more powerful than them. My flashlight is more powerful than them.

	The big fat thing of power the Halliwell house was uncoincidentally built under, and....is....the source of their power even though the Book of Shadows is also the source of their power and the source of their power is at the same time themselves. They destroy it in Season 7...then in Season 8 they still have powers and...it's like this never happened.....and.....

	Person I am glad I am not. Fans are never satisfied unless there's a perfect explanation for every contradiction that happens in their favorite fiction-verse. This show has the most tangled-up mythos of any in television history. if I were Constance I wouldn't travel within 500 feet of a Comic-Con, ever.

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