Very hard questions about "Bewitched"

[Rezny@gmail.com]

During its run,"Bewitched"had a LOT of remakes.1)Why were there so many remakes?2)Did the remakes get higher Nielsen ratings than the original,or did the original get higher Nielsen ratings than the remake?

[Rezny@gmail.com]

And I forgot to add:What was the episode that was the very first episode remade?Name it,AND the remade episode.

[Larry Tate]

#72 "What every Young man should know" from season two is a remake of the Pilot.

Remakes began as early as that not only in the last three seasons as so many say.

I would say from season 3 on there were 2,2,3,3,4,4 (the first 22 episodes) remakes, it was only at the end of season 8 that they were largely the case with 3 of the last 4 episodes being remakes.

These facts just show how creative & diverse Bewitched was, that although they stuck to their main premise through all 8 years they still never became formulaic or just rehashed themselves on a regular basis, quite the opposite was the case with varied &
unique episodes being the norm the vast majority of the time rather then them being glorified remakes of each other as has been suggested.

I must say as well that episodes where a spell was placed on Darrin or when he was transformed, ones time travel back & into the future, witch illness ones etc. were never remakes but all unique & creative episodes in the form of sub premise's of the main premise, otherwise you might as well say that each time Samantha twitched her nose or Darrin kissed her that this made it a remake episode, this would make as much sense as it would be to say the ones i referred to above were remakes as well.

Larry Tate

Originally Posted by rrezny@usnetizen

And I forgot to add:What was the episode that was the very first episode remade?Name it,AND the remade episode.

[Arfies]

I wouldn't say "What Every Young Man Should Know" is a remake at all- more like a re-visit to that particular period in time to see how things would've played out differently. Sure, Sam tells Darrin she's a witch again, but that plays out under completely different circumstances, and there's no "Sheila" equivalent.

[Larry Tate]

I guess that along what i said in my post in general about remakes is what these so called remakes were, a re-visit as you outlined & not the word for word of the entire episodes(which none of them ever were)which so often are claimed to be the case by those people who claim most if not all of the episodes the last 3 seasons & especially they say the last season were remakes..............they weren't needless to say.

So all this remake talk is much ado about nothing.
A Rube Goldberg so to speak.

#72 still was Darrin & Sam pre-marriage in a similar do i tell him or not, his how do i react, etc., not all of the episode is a remake but part of it is, same as many of the later actual in my view as well remakes that took place at 2 to 4 per year from that point onwards were, it is as much a remake as many of the actual remakes later were as they were likewise mostly partial remakes.

Larry Tate

Originally Posted by Arfies

I wouldn't say "What Every Young Man Should Know" is a remake at all- more like a re-visit to that particular period in time to see how things would've played out differently. Sure, Sam tells Darrin she's a witch again, but that plays out under completely different circumstances, and there's no "Sheila" equivalent.

[Rezny@gmail.com]

Getting back to the OTHER questions I asked:WHY were there so many remakes?And secondid the remake get higher Nielsen ratings than the original,or did the original get higher ratings than the remake?

[Arfies]

To use modern fan fiction parlance, "What Every Young Man Should Know" would be considered AU (alternate universe), not a remake.

The first blatantly obvious remake, IMO, would be of "Little Pitchers Have Big Fears" (season 1) into "Soapbox Derby" (season 3): "Samantha helps a young boy (Marshall/Johnny) with a single parent achieve his goal (play baseball/enter Soap Box Derby) despite the objections of Darrin and the parent. In both, Gladys is suspicious of Sam and her influence on the boy. Gladys also has a competitive nephew in each episode" (http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/plotisfamiliar.htm).

The writers just ran out of ideas. I don't know why they didn't just hire new ones, focus more on Tabitha, or perhaps did something like solicit ideas from the audience in a contest or something. "Sisters at Heart" was written by an inner-city high school English class. It could've been a cool concept to continue in that vein.

[catlover79]

They definitely should have hired new writers. Don't know why they didn't because the show was definitely raking in enough money.

[Larry Tate]

I don't think 2 or 3 remakes a year out of 30 to 35 episodes is so many remakes.

Larry Tate

Originally Posted by rrezny@usnetizen

Getting back to the OTHER questions I asked:WHY were there so many remakes?And secondid the remake get higher Nielsen ratings than the original,or did the original get higher ratings than the remake?

[Larry Tate]

I don't think the issue was the lack of new writers but rather that if you were going to stay true to the fundamental premise & the original characterizations then one was limited in what one could do over 8 years.

The alternative would be to go off on a completely different tangent that would not have been good or healthy for the show.

The fact that they stayed true to their original intent & premise is laudable in my view.

Actually a good quarter to a third of the shows the last few years were from new writers.

Larry Tate

Originally Posted by catlover79

They definitely should have hired new writers. Don't know why they didn't because the show was definitely raking in enough money.

[Larry Tate]

Hummmm.......well we can agree to disagree on this one, to me Little Pitchers Have Big Fears", "Soapbox Derby" are the same as It's Magic and Prodigy,the sort of Good Sam helps the Mortals sub premise and therefore would not constitute a remake, same as a spell on Darrin would not even though it had been done before & the basic aspects of it were the same in premise such a spell, complications for Mortal Darrin, he freaks, he & Sam work to fix it out, she uses magic as a last resort to do so, Witches ,laughing at all the mischief they created, mortals saying did i just see that................that sort of thing, but they were not remakes either.

We did need them to turn the show into a Tabitha kiddie show, that would not have worked and would have made it a different show.

Amateurs writing the show's scripts, i don't think so

Larry Tate

Originally Posted by Arfies

To use modern fan fiction parlance, "What Every Young Man Should Know" would be considered AU (alternate universe), not a remake.

The first blatantly obvious remake, IMO, would be of "Little Pitchers Have Big Fears" (season 1) into "Soapbox Derby" (season 3): "Samantha helps a young boy (Marshall/Johnny) with a single parent achieve his goal (play baseball/enter Soap Box Derby) despite the objections of Darrin and the parent. In both, Gladys is suspicious of Sam and her influence on the boy. Gladys also has a competitive nephew in each episode" (http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/plotisfamiliar.htm).

The writers just ran out of ideas. I don't know why they didn't just hire new ones, focus more on Tabitha, or perhaps did something like solicit ideas from the audience in a contest or something. "Sisters at Heart" was written by an inner-city high school English class. It could've been a cool concept to continue in that vein.

[Rezny@gmail.com]

And now,please,answer the final question I asked:did the remake (any remake)get higher ratings in the Niielsens than the original or did the original get higher ratings in the Nielsens than the remake?

[Arfies]

I don't know the ratings for individual episodes, so I can't judge that. But just going by season, then no.

* 1964-65: 31 audience share, No. 2 show
* 1965-66: 26 audience share, No. 7 show
* 1966-67: 23 audience share, No. 8 show
* 1967-68: 23 audience share, No. 11 show
* 1968-69: 23 audience share, No. 12 show
* 1969-70: 21 audience share, No. 25 show
* 1970-71: 15 audience share, No ranking
* 1971-72: 10 audience share, No ranking