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00:00 Sabrina Animated Series, Episode 1.
00:03 It starts with Hilda and Zelda having a nightmare about centuries ago where they had to leave town because they were so afraid of a witch hunter.
00:10 Which makes Heaton from the comic a ripoff.
00:14 As well as the witch hunter that had the vacuum.
00:18 Wait, does it make sense that one of them thought the other said "right" to mean "yes" back in the witch hunting days?
00:25 And I just have to assume the reason they didn't brainwash him into making him leave them alone was that everyone in town would find that suspicious enough to target them anyways.
00:35 And the same would happen if they turned him into a frog because they'd notice his disappearance.
00:41 I have to assume they didn't have enough magic to make everyone in town forget about the witch hunter after getting rid of him.
00:48 But without being told that, it could just be hard to take seriously that all powerful witches are afraid of a mortal.
00:55 Also, I assume we're not supposed to think the person dreaming sees this dream in black and white and it's only that way for effect for the audience.
01:06 It wouldn't make any sense for her to actually dream in black and white because people stopped doing that after color TV became common.
01:14 Zelda's acting when she unrealistically sits up from the bed screaming is bad.
01:20 I read the comics so I can't sympathize with these two.
01:23 I love that eggs and bacon get splattered on Quigley's face.
01:28 They finally explain that they're on edge because of the dream one of them had about a witch hunter.
01:33 Sabrina's acting isn't trying hard enough.
01:37 Zelda talks as if the guy who hunts witches for his own collection is still alive.
01:42 Meaning he has to be a witch himself.
01:45 It seems like the episode doesn't want you to be scared of Tim the Witch Smeller because it's lame that it plays the stereotypical dum-dum-dum music twice and his title is silly.
01:57 It's the definition of norm.
02:00 Zelda uses some of the food in the kitchen to show Sabrina a part of her past to show off Tim.
02:06 It makes sense for her to do that instead of casting from her own magic because she'll run out of magic if she does it too often.
02:13 I'm somehow expected to believe Tim didn't have magic even though his parents were witches.
02:19 It's stupid in Harry Potter too.
02:22 So if only it was explained that he has a genetic mutation making him unable to use magic.
02:27 Like being unable to visualize.
02:30 Which is possible in real life.
02:32 They could just use magic to cure his inability to visualize things so no that can't be it.
02:38 And he has to have magic in him regardless or else he wouldn't have lived until modern day.
02:45 We see him get mocked by little witch girls.
02:49 Quigley says witches can be cruel and gets glared at.
02:53 I wonder why he was living in a town with witches in the other realm if he's unable to use magic.
03:01 Like his parents are so cruel.
03:03 And it turns out Tim started using gadgets to hunt witches.
03:08 If he invented those gadgets centuries ago, he's like as smart as Rick Sanchez.
03:14 The only reason he gets away with being that unrealistic is that it's a cartoon.
03:19 Later, Harvey watches TV near Sabrina and says people can be gullible.
03:24 She agrees that her answer is idiots.
03:27 And arbitrarily when he holds a mirror in front of his face, his head looks weird.
03:31 And Sabrina has to undo that by taking it away.
03:34 Why is that still in her house?
03:37 I assume it's here because it's a family heirloom but it should have been hidden in the attic.
03:44 Then he puts on a magical amulet that come to think of it should also be in the attic.
03:49 And says he'll try it on.
03:51 Despite being a guy.
03:52 I mean a few guys try on necklaces but usually preteen guys don't because they're afraid of being bullied.
03:59 And somehow Sabrina doesn't hear him talk about the amulet and instantly solve the problem.
04:05 Even though she would have heard him because he's in her house.
04:09 Sabrina's aunt smeared themselves with green gunk to try to protect themselves from being detected by Tim.
04:16 Who eventually uses a machine to spray Harvey with stuff to trap him.
04:21 I assume the reason he's risking embarrassment by talking about witches in front of him is he assumes Harvey's a witch who's just plain dumb based on the magic in the amulet.
04:31 Harvey gets kidnapped and Sabrina warns her family about it.
04:35 This scene takes too long.
04:37 Before this, the episode's pacing went so fast it was hard to keep up when typing about it.
04:42 Zelda says Tim has a phone scrambler that magically jumbles up their spells to make them useless.
04:48 Sabrina says she'll go save Harvey.
04:51 So her aunts use magic to trap her in the house and force her to get grabbed and brought up the stairs.
04:57 So they can only not use magic well when they're close to Tim.
05:01 They look mean but at least it's responsible of them to protect her.
05:05 Come to think of it, why doesn't Sabrina simply warp out of the house?
05:10 Or at least use something like pixie powder to do it.
05:14 I have to assume her aunts told her later that they made that impossible for her.
05:18 Meanwhile, Harvey thinks he's been kidnapped by someone because that person's running a TV show because he thought this was all a prank.
05:26 That was a filler scene.
05:28 Salem becomes an ally in Sabrina's goal to save Harvey.
05:32 You'd think an invisible force field would be around the house keeping her from getting here.
05:37 That could've been what was done instead of the first thing that kept her from leaving it.
05:41 Which felt more like technology having a security system.
05:47 An invisible force field would feel a lot more like magic than a metal wall.
05:52 So you'd think she would've thought of a magical force field idea faster.
05:56 Sabrina holds something and says a spell which causes green fire to appear on the road.
06:02 Which I'm sure nobody will question.
06:04 And she follows it.
06:06 A lot of cars are gonna have to drive around that and if they don't because the driver thinks he's hallucinating then he's gonna end up ruining his tires if he actually drives on it.
06:16 You'd think Enchantra would have a problem with this.
06:19 Tilda immediately knows a tracking spell is missing from her spell book.
06:23 I guess she read it to try to stop Tim.
06:26 Why would she think any magic would stop Tim if she said he had a magic scrambler?
06:32 And they warp away.
06:34 Harvey's saying Amulet makes Tim look at it and realize it's a soul gem and that he's immortal.
06:41 Then why didn't he instantly know then?
06:43 I just realized why does he think having a soul gem means he's mortal?
06:49 A witch could very easily be wearing a magical necklace.
06:53 If anything that would make him be convinced that he's a witch even more.
06:57 Somehow the witch heads on the mantle in a kids' cartoon can talk.
07:02 And it's explained the rest of them are stuck in a parallel dimension and they're turned into living trophies.
07:08 So now he can't even walk through this part of the house without them annoying him.
07:13 At least that means he's not too evil as he kept them alive.
07:16 Somehow.
07:18 Even though if he hates witches he'd want them eliminated.
07:22 Sabrina somehow wastes time trying to use magic against someone she was told can scramble up magic.
07:28 And it's not like she's used to using magic against someone directly.
07:32 So she wouldn't have done this by force of habit.
07:35 So she gets trapped in a force field by Tim.
07:38 Instead she taunts him that it wasn't so hard for him to capture all of those witches.
07:43 To try and make him desperate to prove he didn't lose his touch.
07:46 This manipulates him into giving her a head start.
07:49 So because of that plot convenience she gets to run away and escape from below a sewer hatch.
07:54 I'm impressed that she was allowed to be smart.
07:58 I know the witches couldn't directly use magic on him.
08:01 But they could still like damage his house.
08:05 She gets threatened by Tim at a dead end in an alley.
08:09 Her aunts taunt him and I wonder how they knew to come here.
08:13 I suppose they followed the green fire that every mortal assumed they were hallucinating.
08:19 You'd think we would have been shown them doing that to know how to find her.
08:23 Instead we saw them warp away and I wondered how they knew where to warp to.
08:27 I guess the one who warped away used a spell to make sure she would home in on Sabrina.
08:33 It ends up raining cheese.
08:35 And I don't have enough time to question why don't these witches freeze time to effortlessly win against Tim.
08:42 Good thing the episode didn't show them doing that to bring up that question.
08:47 Thanks to lasers they have to run away from him.
08:51 Tim ends up lying down and says he hates minivans.
08:54 So if he got hit by one, how is he still going to be a threat?
08:58 I have to assume he has nanobots in himself to heal him quickly.
09:02 Because he's standing and trying to fire lasers at them the next time he shows up.
09:06 After Zelda casts a spell to warp the mortals in the mall to safety.
09:12 Either he has nanobots or he has a magic artifact somewhere.
09:16 Also it would suck if we didn't see the impact when he got hit by the minivan.
09:21 Salem puts stuff on the floor and you'd think everyone near Salem would hear him say "follow your nose" in front of the weird looking animal.
09:29 He should have been written as whispering.
09:32 I mean even then you'd think the animal would hear him because animals always have better hearing than us.
09:37 So he should have just thought it.
09:39 So the animal that looks like an alien ends up freaking out at the hot sauce and running to the fountain.
09:45 I assume that the reason Sabrina's family had that amulet was for extra magic in case he ran out.
09:50 Because he was able to detect magic in it.
09:53 Even without that explanation we can assume it's a family heirloom they're too attached to to get rid of.
09:58 Sabrina comes up with a plan to spill little candy balls on the floor to trip Tim.
10:04 Why are they bothering to celebrate that they made it to Nightfall and they rule when either way Tim's still a threat?
10:10 I assume they're celebrating because of a reason I forgot.
10:14 Why are these three standing still when Tim's pointing a ray gun at them?
10:18 Then he gets brought upwards by the fishing pole of Quigley who calls him out on being mean to the ants.
10:24 He's unusually strong and the fishing line is pretty hard to break if it can handle his weight.
10:29 He gets told witches are all alike.
10:32 And Quigley says individuals are different from each other and that he doesn't judge people by their skin color or whether they have magic.
10:42 And yet he constantly demonizes the witch crowd.
10:45 So this only thanks to good establishing character moments because clearly he still wishes Sabrina wasn't the witch.
10:52 He smartly pretends to agree with him and apologizes.
10:56 Then he starts laughing evilly and activates his device.
11:00 Meaning that apologizing was pointless because they had plenty of time to plan against him and all the time he was laughing evilly.
11:07 This creates a green tornado sending his pet and eventually himself in it.
11:12 This traps him in the device.
11:14 I have to assume he was turned into AI for this to make sense.
11:18 Sabrina hugs Quigley and Hilda says another condescending remark about mortals for this episode saying that's not bad for a mortal.
11:27 Fortunately Quigley calls her out on the fact that her tendency to have a condescending attitude is what creates witch haters.
11:34 But obviously it's not really that, it's the fear of their powers.
11:38 Harvey happily gives Sabrina back the amulet with no drama over the fact that he borrowed it without asking.
11:45 And we see that the captured witches got their bodies back.
11:48 And Tim ends up on a mantel on his wall.
11:51 But he's still alive which is a fate worse than death as nobody's gonna be in that abandoned dark house to talk to him.
11:59 And I assume he doesn't need to eat or drink.
12:02 Cause otherwise he'd just be doomed to starve to death or dehydrate anyways.
12:06 What if a mortal eventually goes in there, like a burglar, and sees him?
12:11 Killing would have been merciful compared to his punishment at the end where he'd end up going even more insane from loneliness.
12:18 This just makes the main characters look heartless and know better than him in this one thing.
12:23 You'd think they would notify the head witch about him to get him imprisoned instead.
12:28 As for why a spy witch didn't do something about him a long time ago, I assume he never had a spy witch assigned to supervise him.
12:36 Because he doesn't have powers.
12:39 You'd think a spy witch in charge of supervising other witches would have done something about him centuries ago though.
12:47 This is a deceptively good episode of the show.
12:50 I say deceptively because it creates a good first impression by having nothing to do with how the show probably is most of the time based on the comic.
12:58 And to not be careful what you wish for, Plot.
13:01 And while Sabrina's aunts are harsh with her, it's only for a justified reason.
13:05 To protect her.
13:07 They're scared of a witch hunter because it can use a gadget to make their magic unable to bother him.
13:12 So I wouldn't have had faith in Sabrina either.
13:15 Good thing it's explained that the witch hunter is related to witches so I can easily have "He got magical artifacts" as a way to hand wave away while he can even make an anti-magic gadget.
13:28 The plot could have been rewritten with Chloe instead of Harvey to make sense.
13:32 So the witches have to deal with Tim and the mall.
13:35 Salem uses hot sauce to debilitate a tracking animal, and Sabrina is creative enough to send candy balls to trip Tim,
13:42 and Quigley uses a fishing rod to grab him.
13:46 It's all creative ways of dealing with him, making the story worth it.
13:50 Still, most of the episode would have never happened.
13:53 The fear of his gadgets doesn't explain why none of these witches freeze time to rescue Harvey.
13:59 I just realized, why do none of these idiots warp Harvey to them and erase his memories of Tim?
14:05 At least the episode never showed that these witches could do either of those things, so if you aren't keeping in mind what witches can do for most of the series, you won't notice.
14:13 And the story was worth it.
14:16 But it was still poorly written.
14:19 It was so catastrophically condescendingly clueless about how someone with magic would act.
14:24 So far it looks like the writers of this show shouldn't be writing Sabrina.
14:28 Hilda and Zelda seem to have the same personality, making them redundant.
14:32 Salem doesn't show off his personality, and in fact, it's not even explained why he's a cat.
14:39 Chloe and Jem aren't here, and it was only a good episode by not being like most animated series plots.
14:46 So it's a botched establishing character moment for everything about the show,
14:50 the only thing that worked being that it's perfect to have the first episode of a show about witches sent around to Witch Hunter.
14:56 It was only technically bad, because it's definitely poorly written, but I didn't hate watching it.
15:04 (upbeat music)