Could a Bewitched remake charm audiences?

The '60s sitcom about a not-quite-domesticated witch is the latest classic series to get a TV reboot — for better or worse

The 1960s television series "Bewitched"
(Image credit: Bettmann/CORBIS)

CBS has reincarnated Hawaii Five-O. Questionable TV reboots of Charlie's Angels and Dallas are in the works. And now, Bewitched may become the latest TV classic to get a network revamp. CBS ordered a script for a remake of the popular '60s comedy, which starred Elizabeth Montgomery as a witch who magically meddled with her husband's ambition to live a peacefully pedestrian life. The series has already been reborn once, as a critically-ravaged 2005 movie starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. Could anything short of a magical twitch of the nose make a new version successful?

This show could be charming: The original Bewitched is remembered more fondly for its likable cast than "for its status as an all-time great TV comedy," says James Poniewozik at TIME. In theory, a reboot of a "not-great show can have the potential to be much better." (See Battlestar Galactica.) If CBS could modernize Bewitched, make it "surprising and maybe even a little edgy," this could just work.

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