A "Bewitched" follow-up that fast forwards two generations to Samantha's granddaughter has found a home at NBC with a commitment to produce a pilot after the network won the bidding rights from ABC.
The "Bewitched" follow-up, written by "The Vow" writers Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, moves the plot line along from the original 1960s series anchored by Elizabeth Montgomery's character of Samantha to her granddaughter Daphne as the original celebrates its 50th anniversary,
according to Deadline.com.
"Daphne – Samantha's granddaughter and Tabitha's daughter – a single twentsomething witch …has always used her magical powers to conjure herself the perfect life," wrote Nellie Andreeva, of Deadline.com about the updated "Bewitched" plot. "But she soon realizes that the one thing she cannot conjure and control is the one thing she wants most – real love."
The original series ran on ABC from 1964 through 1972 and continues to find life through syndication, according to Deadline.com. The website noted that Tabitha had a spinoff series on ABC in 1977 with Lisa Hartman playing the adult Tabitha with her brother Adam, working at a TV station.
"Bewitched has never been off the air since it first broadcast on Sept. 17, 1964," David L. Pierce, author of "The Omni-Directional Three-Dimensional Vectoring Paper Printed Omnibus for Bewitched Analysis a.k.a. The Bewitched History Book" told
Digitalbits.com.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone (over 25 years old anyway...this younger generation...) that hasn't heard of it and had fond memories of the show. And in talking with the cast and guest stars all of them only have fond memories of the set, so all that means there definitely should be a celebration of one of the best shows in TV history," Pierce added.
Herbie Pilato, writer of "The Bewitched Book," told TheDigitalBits.com that ABC was still a young network at the time and "Bewitched" was the network's first legitimate hit show.
"The show was a hit from the moment it debuted," Pilato told TheDigitalbits.com. "It helped to put ABC on the map. Secondly, and from a creative standpoint, the series was one of the most well-written and thought-out sitcoms of all time; it certainly was the most well-written and thought-out supernatural sitcoms of all time. The pilot episode, written by series creator Sol Saks, has gone down in history as one of the finest crafted half-hours of television ever created – in any genre."