W.I.T.C.H.
POSTED BY: Cybersnark
UPDATED: Friday, July 28, 2006 14:22
VIEWED: 3622
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One of my new favourite shows wasn't on this weekend (Family channel frelled up the broadcast schedule again), so I thought I'd come on here to talk about it.
Has anybody else been watching this show?
It's produced by Disney, for Jetix, based on a (French?) comic book. The series focuses on this group of five girls (whose initials spell out the title), pre-destined Guardians of the Veil (upgraded to Guardians of the Infinite Realms in S2). I know, it sounds like a ripoff of shoujou sentai* animé, but it reminds me of nothing so much as Buffy.
There've been other Guardian quintets before --it's a generational thing, much like the Slayers. In this case, the fates of the previous Guardians end up playing a major role in S2. The old group fell apart when one of them was murdered by one of their own (the Evil Guardian is the Big Bad of season 2). The Guardians have two forms; their human identities and their transformed modes. They have a jewelled pendant called the Heart of Kandrakhar, which serves as a conduit for their power (when they transform, little blobs of magic streak out of the Heart and into each of them, returning when they power down). When they transform, they age to adults (meaning that they can pass themselves off as their own older sisters), and they can fly, obviously using some form of telekinesis, since there's no way those tiny wings can support them (apparently, in the comic-continuity, Hay Lin [who can control air] is the only one who can fly, pretty much confirming it).
The action switches between Earth and a world called Meridian, which is basically a take on Middle-Earth (yet vaguely reminiscent of Pylea, from Angel), populated by humans, lurdens (who serve as orcs, filling out the Evil Army), passlings (little troll/goblin things, about knee-high), and another (elf-like) race who look like humans with bony growths around their faces (they may actually be humans, with the "bones" being some kind of tribal ornamentation).
The lurdens aren't just orc-analogues; they actually show individual personality and intelligence, and one of them (named Tynar) even becomes a pivotal character towards the end of S1. Apparently, Phobos has been telling lies to his troops to secure their loyalty, painting the world beyond the Veil as a savage world of torture and cruelty. Tynar ends up rescued by the Guardians (after his own side left him to die) and learns the truth, then becomes a double-agent, sowing dissent in the ranks until Phobos' army defects en masse.
Meridian is ruled by Prince Phobos (and his giant snake-monster hench-thing, Lord Cedric), and it's been 15 years since a pair of servants smuggled his infant sister away from his clutches, to Earth. S1 revolves around the hunt for the long-lost sister, whose magical powers are greater than Phobos' own (she is the incarnation of the Heart of Meridian --which implies that there's a Heart of Earth around somewhere). Once she's found, he orchestrates a "coronation," intended to transfer her power to him, making him unstoppable (and killing her, incidentally). The Veil is artificially maintained to prevent Phobos' power from reaching Earth (after the end of S1, the Veil is lowered and its magic is shunted to the Guardians, supercharging their old powers and adding a new ability in each of them). Unfortunately, the Veil is full of holes, called Portals, through which Phobos' agents can travel.
Battling Phobos is a tattered, threadbare rebellion, lead by a kid named Caleb (he kinda reminds me of a teenaged Angel, wearing a brown coat
). Caleb ends up as the series' male lead (while still managing to avoid being turned into "the token guy" a la Tuxedo Mask). He's tough, iron-willed, kinda arrogant (but he's earned it), and actually a bit more savvy than the girls. Of course, leading a rebellion at 15 doesn't exactly make for a normal childhood, so he's a little
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Wow you seem to be really enthusiastic about it. I hope you just copied all those quotes and didn't write them yourself 
I wanted to watch it but it's so hard to find it on bittorrent since the search engines there don't recognize dots and there are about a billion torrents with witch in the name.
Anyway I'll keep looking for it and see if it's really as great as you say. The quotes are pretty funny actually 
btw: Am I the only one who doesn't like youtube? 
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Yeah, I cut'n'pasted most of the quotes from TV.com (plus a few that I remembered that they didn't have).
And no, I hate youtube too (bad compression, eats up my connection, can't take stuff offline to play at my leisure), it's just that most of the vids there can't be found anywhere else.
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