Good_Witch_intertitleI’m not gonna lie. I spent the other week binge watching the Good Witch TV show. I feel that it is my sacred duty to watch every TV show about witches.

I wasn’t sure I was keen on it at first, but it had the word Witch in the title, so I was going to have to at least try it. And it was nothing like all the other witchy TV shows I have seen.

As in, twee as fuck and cheesy as hell. Still tried it. Was pleasantly surprised.

5 Reasons The Good Witch is a really interesting Witchy TV show:

1. It’s called the Good Witch, but no-one ever mentions the word Witch. Like, ever.

It’s centred around this intuitive herbalist witchy person called Cassie, and she is of course super witchy, in a Sandra Bullock in Practical magic kinda way: always in the kitchen, mixing concoctions, lovely dinners and potions and things. She is a practical witch. But no-one ever mentions it. No one even cares, really. I like the way that even though it’s about a witch, but doesn’t rely on the regular trappings of witches on TV – the demons, the CGI magical powers, the saying the word Witch all the time, the uber-drama.

It’s like the witch thing is kind of incidental to the plot. It’s really refreshing to see such a positive representation of everyday witches on TV, where no-one seems to really care about her witchiness.

2. She ain’t no Good vs Evil witch. She is an everyday witch.

Most TV shows with witches in them are big and dramatic. In Charmed, they are rocking the Good vs Evil battle to the max. In the Witches of East end, there is SO much escalated drama. There is lots of fighting. There is an eternal struggle of some sort, between something and someone.
In the Good Witch, Cassie just gets on getting on. She’s intuitive: she knows who is gonna walk through the door next, when someone is upset but not showing it, that something is going to happen before it does. That’s just base level sixth sense or intuition: it ain’t no premonition nonsense. She doesn’t make a big deal out of it, neither do the people who know her. It’s just a quirk of hers. She makes tinctures and perfumes and herbal stuff to help people with poorly tummies or low blood pressure or whatever everyday ailment they have.
No demons.
No fighting.
No magic powers.
It’s just a more accurate representation of what a witch would actually do in real life.

3. She’s like some freaky spiritual guru to the town.

Now I admit, I like Cassie, but I think this side of her would annoy me somewhat. Constantly wise people are just annoying, it’s a fact. We just want to happily ignore the right thing and the wise thing to do and get on with messing things up our own way, thanks.

But I really like how this show portrays a witch as a deep spiritual person. She gives great advice, is a practitioner of non-attachment, just wants to actually help people (without interfering or making a big show of it), understands that people’s reactions to her are not about her but about them and sees things from a deeper place. She’s like this witchy buddha living in this impossibly cool house full of candles and shit. I like.

4. Going along with the Guru thing, she says some really smart stuff.

I seem to be getting a lot of spiritual guidance from TV this year. One thing she said in an episode that really stuck with me was that Frustration comes from trying to control other people or situations, and you just can’t control those things. And I was all – Huh, you are right fictional witch.

5. It’s all about smallness.

I’m really digging things about smallness at the moment. Some background on this: I’m an entrepreneur, and us entrepreneur types tend to be fed the 6 figure lifestyle! location independent living! buy expensive houses and be mega rich! thing and in our culture we are so fed the whole fame-is-the-game thing and the be-special-and-better-than-others thing which really messes us up. It’s like constantly being caught between the feeling that I should be big and well known and famous in order to be successful, and the feeling that I really want a garden and a dog and some friends and lots of cuddles is discounted because that is not enough.

The Good Witch is like an exercise in smallness for me. Cassie has her little shop that she runs, her community full of people she likes, her kid and her life where she seems to just spend ages fiddling around in her rockin’ kitchen or potting plants or being in rooms full of candles. She sees her friends and helps out with community events, and that’s enough for her. When people push her to go bigger, to open up another shop so she can make more money and help more people, she’s all, “why would I do that? I like my shop here and knowing everyone. This is my own little corner of the world and I love it here.”

***

Nothing much happens in the series. For real. Her daughter has a love/hate relationship with the neighbour which is a bit annoying, there’s some real estate issues, and everyone is getting to know the hot new doctor. That’s pretty much it. Oh, there is a snowstorm at one point, and everyone’s all “We should stay indoors!”. But there is no we-must-fight-to-save-our-town, no big bad, no enemy. Just cute little human every day troubles.

It’s kind of nice to watch something pleasant and simple.

The Good Witch isn’t the most gripping drama, or the most fantastically written (hell no!), or the best acted, or anything other than kind of nice and pleasant to watch in the background. Everyone has great hair, it’s a bit twee and it’s cheesy as fuck.

But it’s a very nice, unusual interpretation of witches in popular culture that was really lovely to see.