Charmed: Sight Unseen (3.5)

I've always been a huge fan of this episode, presumably because it features a truly human bad guy. Prue spends a lot of the episode insistent that a demon is stalking her, and the well-crafted script ends up producing two very different villains, one another melodramatic demon, the other somebody more familiar to the Halliwell's. Abbey is hilariously nuts, stalking Prue for months, writing about her every move in her journal, stealing her clothes and eventually expressing a desire to actually become her. There's also an entertainingly paranoid tone to the episode, with a fun pastiche of The Eyes of Laura Mars at the end, while the guessing-game of trying to work out who's the person responsible for the thefts providing a lot of amusement.

While a lot of the hour works, I think Shannen could have toned down the anger just a little, especially in the first fifteen minutes. There are points where she's literally screaming at her sisters, and it becomes a little much. She recovers for the rest of the episode, though, and her resourcefulness as she's being stalked through the house is pretty admirable. I always liked Prue. She's not as loud and abrasive as her sisters, but has a quiet dignity that I'm guessing Shannen enforced.

The strongest episode so far this season, Sight Unseen balances a series of varying plot strands with a lot of success. Cole's manipulations are a lot of fun, while the stalking is handled with the subtle eeriness of old-school horror, mixed with the outlandish trashiness of some Tori Spelling TV movie. A-

Crimes of Fashion Presumably Eilish was so bored by those non-cleavagey Pilgrim outfits last episode that she went just about as skanky as possible this week, Prue and Phoebe dressed in hideous glittery party dresses that allow their breasts to literally explode over the top of them. And somehow those sneakers just make them extra classy. And what is up with that whore-a-licious hot pink corset Pheebs is wearing at the end? Gah!

Credits
Guest stars Boti Ann Bliss (Abbey); Rick Hearst (Troxa); Eddie Cahill (Sean); Amir Aboulela (Triad #1); Shaun Toub (Triad #2); Rick Overton (Triad #3); Marvelous 3 (Themselves)
Writer William Schmidt Director Perry Lang