Samantha is unquestionably the main character

[Arfies]

I mean, the title of the thread is obvious on the surface (Samantha is unquestionably the main character). But that occurred to me after thinking about other supernatural/"secret" sitcoms of the 1960s where it's the "ordinary" person who, despite what the title may say, is the person the show mostly follows and the audience sympathizes with. For example, in "I Dream of Jeannie," the show mainly follows the perspective of Tony and how Jeannie screws up Tony's life. Not to say that Jeannie isn't *A* main character (she obviously is) or that certain plots don't revolve around her specifically (they do), but she isn't THE main character.

But in "Bewitched," with Darrin at work (or in Dick York's case, sometimes absent altogether), it's Samantha's perspective that is followed by the show. It's how Samantha is trying to live a mortal life, how Samantha interacts with her family, it's how Samantha solves problems, etc. Pretty cool. Besides "Bewitched" being one of the few supernatural sitcoms where we almost exclusively follow and sympathize with the supernatural character instead of the "normal" one, it's also one of the few of the era where the primary character the audience sympathizes with is a woman (Lucy's shows and "The Donna Reed Show" come to mind as a few others). Again, pretty cool.

There's a few episodes where Darrin is the main character in which he drives most of the action (mostly season 2 when Samantha is pregnant and they probably wanted to give Elizabeth Montgomery a break- "Take Two Aspirin" comes to mind, plus the unusual season 5 "Marriage, Witches' Style" where Serena is the main character), but overall, it's Sam.

[Chocolate Moose]

Interesting to think about!