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00:00 Sabrina the Animated Series Episode 55
00:03 A desk lamp is automatically typing to do Sabrina's homework.
00:07 I hope this doesn't result in badly done homework because the writer jealously hates her.
00:13 She would have been told that it could screw up the homework just by reading the magic book.
00:19 Sabrina uses magic to get the phone away and Salem accuses her of goofing off when he's supposed to be an evil goof-off.
00:29 An automatic servant brings her something and a call from Harvey invites her to a social event.
00:34 She says she'll make up for her work tomorrow and Salem says that's what she said before when the toaster brought her something and he reminds her of piano practice.
00:44 Why does she think that making the piano play itself counts as teaching her to get good at the piano?
00:50 I just can't blame her for wanting to have fun.
00:54 When Quigley says she got an F and asks her what she's gonna be when she's 30, on the first watch I started skipping ahead rapidly in the video out of boredom because this is bullshit.
01:05 Again, there's no reason the spell would have resulted in bad homework. It would have just scanned the universe to learn what's right.
01:14 There's a 2000s comic where Sabrina just zapped to get an A on her homework. She'd have done that.
01:21 Her magic spot had her tell each of her friends she wanted to hang out at the mall even though they were all busy at work.
01:26 And in that magic spot, she somehow still thinks Harvey would get an important job even though anywhere but here had him be a door-to-door salesman.
01:35 She says she'll have to do without witchcraft.
01:40 She uncharacteristically says she'll take a binding witch's oath to give up magic forever.
01:47 Hilda says that breaking the oath has an awful punishment. Salem says yeah, but somehow he didn't know about the punishment already.
01:55 Zelda arbitrarily refuses to tell them the punishment because it's too horrible.
02:00 This is as irresponsible as a parent not telling her kid the consequences of poisoning herself.
02:05 Why would Quigley ever object to this? This is what he wanted Sabrina to do.
02:10 Granted, they had no way of anticipating that she'd ever make that oath.
02:16 When the aunts wake up in the morning, she walks up to them dressed like an adult with a briefcase with a personal organizer because she thinks she has to become a success by micromanaging her time.
02:27 Hey wait, how did she get any of that stuff if she can't summon things?
02:31 Her aunts just woke up and I'm sure they're surprised by all this.
02:36 Apparently these things were always in the house.
02:40 She has her whole day in life planned out by the minute because it's totally possible for a 12 year old to care enough to do that.
02:47 Her aunts smile only to look worried like they're smart enough to have no faith in this idiot.
02:52 She seems unrealistically amazing, so when is that going to end?
02:56 The story skips ahead by two weeks and she shows her aunts charts revealing that she's become a better student.
03:05 In somehow she refuses to go out for pizza because she wants to be a success when that wouldn't stop her from that.
03:11 She coughs off like a step forward smiler because it's so out of character for her to be happy with this for so long.
03:17 Salem is somehow caught in a tornado and he doesn't use magic to save himself.
03:22 He tells her to save him when he knows she'd be punished.
03:26 She says magic vortexes don't spin in that way, so that's a fake one he summoned to ruin her life.
03:33 I guess he summoned them with magical artifacts, potion ingredients, because otherwise it's just forgetting that he's now not got any magic.
03:41 Quigley clearly knows he eats cookies the wrong way in a way that inconveniences the family.
03:47 Because of how his acting is, why would he even bother approaching her otherwise?
03:53 I just hate how passive aggressive and condescending he is, like he doesn't just come out with it and accuse her already.
04:00 Sabrina says she hasn't eaten cookies that way since she was four, and Quigley says that Salem shouldn't have tried to tempt her.
04:06 He literally does nothing but cause them trouble.
04:09 They have no reason to want him around.
04:12 Hilda ends up teepeed when she was asleep, and Quigley says someone turned his books into tapered dolls,
04:19 and Salem says someone tied something to his tail and he started chasing it.
04:23 Zelda finds out her whole room was ruined with crayon, and Sabrina doesn't know who did all of this.
04:30 And who signed Sabrina.
04:32 It's an obvious conclusion that Sabrina did all that while sleepwalking.
04:36 Zelda says the crystal ball records everything that goes on in the house just in case, and this is news to Sabrina.
04:43 Which is why she didn't just tell her aunts to look at the footage and see that it was Salem who always told her to use spooky.
04:49 And I have to assume that the reason she'll keep doing stuff they won't approve of
04:55 is that she'll assume it won't matter because they never check the footage.
04:59 Meaning they have no reason to keep it around, so it's just a pointless deus ex machina.
05:04 They see a young Sabrina who uses Zelda's wand to do magic pointlessly.
05:09 Zelda wouldn't have a wand.
05:12 Zelda says it's her inner witch-let.
05:15 Somehow every witch has one, and her inner witch-let magically comes out to play at night when magic isn't used enough.
05:24 Seems pretty horrifying that there's a sentient being trapped in Sabrina at all times.
05:29 Why doesn't Salem ever ask the aunts what the punishment is if he wants to make Sabrina unleash it on herself?
05:36 He should explain that he wants this so Sabrina can be relatable to him again and go on magical adventures to amuse him again.
05:44 Sabrina wasted time with an obviously doomed plan to stay up all night, and that fails.
05:51 Why not just give her a potion that'll have the effect of keeping her awake?
05:55 Well, that's because they know that she shouldn't stay awake forever because she'll die.
06:00 They could've explained that.
06:03 It was just a waste of time.
06:05 Jem tells a cop that the Sabrina household stole her ponies.
06:09 So does she know the Sabrina family did it from camera footage or one of her servants or miraculously seeing it, even though it was night?
06:20 It's more likely that she just jumped to this conclusion.
06:22 Why is the story wasting my time with all of this?
06:25 The ponies run past the cop and Jem, who the aunts could brainwash at any time.
06:31 They'd freak out at Salem laughing.
06:33 Zelda says it's good that she convinced the chief that the ponies merely escaped, and Hilda says she convinced the chief that this house is a designated pony refuge.
06:43 Why have such stilted dialogue instead of showing us them doing the convincing?
06:49 Why the hell isn't it explained that they simply brainwashed the chief?
06:53 Quigley plans to stay awake all night at Sabrina's bedside because he's as stupid as she is somehow.
07:00 And when she wakes up, he's satisfyingly covered in yarn.
07:04 What did he expect?
07:06 I don't get why one of the aunts don't just stay up late at night so that they can point to the inner witch that's a freezer in time.
07:13 I also don't get why they don't just demand her to start playing for a little bit every day.
07:18 Somehow Sabrina tells her aunts she doesn't need them to supervise her at night when she's asked if she's sure, because more shitty idiot plot writing.
07:26 She says she'd like to see her inner witchlet get past all the traps in her room, that I have to assume the aunts summoned because no mortal would be able to set that up at 12.
07:37 In the morning, they see a big pile of stuff the young Sabrina had.
07:42 The show wants me to call her "Breenie."
07:44 How is she still here?
07:47 Why would Breenie even ask that?
07:48 Breenie says she comes out when she wants, but then what took so long?
07:53 The cop finds out his station was stolen from.
07:56 Why would even a young version of Sabrina be the type to steal when she could just zap up whatever she wants?
08:02 She turns quickly into a parrot who can barely talk for Nagner to stop.
08:08 Her aunts are forced by the writer to walk right up to Breenie like an idiot instead of them freezing her in time like Sabrina did to Jem.
08:16 So they're put in a cage that must be enchanted since they immediately think Sabrina is the only one who can do something.
08:22 You'd think extremely experienced, 600-year-old witches wouldn't be completely helpless against a 4-year-old witch.
08:30 If it was as simple as summoning pink ropes around Breenie, why didn't any of the other far more experienced witches think to do that?
08:38 Sabrina is predictably told that she has to have a little fun every day to get rid of Breenie.
08:45 She would have been told that right away.
08:47 The cops try to go to the house and somehow when they get trampled by things running out of it, they decide to go away from the house and never speak of it.
08:55 He doesn't act terrified to make me buy this. He acts as if he's just exasperated.
09:01 Usually mortals act like they're dreaming or think they're hallucinating when they see magic.
09:07 Sabrina uses magic to get rid of the cake.
09:10 So why don't any of her aunts do this if it's not enchanted?
09:14 And if it is enchanted, why aren't any of them questioning how she's so powerful?
09:19 Quigley and the answer is smiling despite thinking of the punishment as harsh.
09:23 Somehow the punishment is that monsters would chase after your cat.
09:28 I have to just assume because the writer is a horrible writer that this is only the case for Salem.
09:34 There's no way this would be the punishment anyways because animal cruelty laws are a thing and obviously it'd be the witch herself who's punished.
09:42 I feel like the episode was lying to me the whole time by having the punishment not be as horrible.
09:46 There's no point in even having there be a punishment then.
09:51 Zelda always knew what the punishment was, so why did she refuse to speak of it when she clearly needed to make Salem stop trying to manipulate Sabrina into breaking her oath?
10:00 If she didn't want this to happen to Salem, she would've just warned him.
10:04 If she wanted Salem to get chased, she would've summoned them to chase him much earlier.
10:11 She knew better enough about Salem to keep the punishment a secret.
10:14 The ants never needed a good excuse to abuse him.
10:17 The episode wasted so much space that it needed to rush its ending when it could've just had the family bribe Enchantress with great cooking to make them not punish her.
10:27 I still wonder why she'd be convinced when she can zap up anything, but at least that predictable voodoo shark would be better than this ass pull.
10:34 And that's the same term I'd use to describe the whole conflict of the episode.
10:39 As I expected, this episode was insultingly forced, revealing some nonsense that if a witch is all work and no play, her inner child will get automatically brought to life by the magic in her to do horrible things.
10:51 And that would've been made impossible by the Witch's Council a long time ago.
10:55 If they don't want witches to be all work and no play out of compassion for them, they want to use magic to make this be the case to punish them, because that's an unrealistically harsh punishment.
11:07 They can't be sadistic if they don't approve of witches overworking themselves.
11:11 Instead they just send Enchantress to lecture the witch that they have to play a little bit every day or else.
11:17 They won't even send Enchantress, it would just be some random mook of hers.
11:21 This whole story should've been avoided because her aunts could've just warned her about this in the first place, instead of being insanely irresponsible.
11:30 The story screwed up portraying Sabrina as being in the wrong for being all work, because she was genuinely happy the entire time.
11:37 I only suspected her of being a stepford smiler because she was being out of character by enjoying being a workaholic.
11:43 My logical assumption that the havoc was caused by her sleepwalking out of stress would've been much better because it makes sense and properly established in a clear way that she was secretly miserable.
11:55 Teaching the lesson. But no, she gets punished and told off for living life in the way that makes her happiest.
12:02 Where she showed no signs of stress and misery, even though the Sabrina I know would've been constantly bored and inconvenienced by not using magic.
12:10 Sure the message is a good one, but making the consequence of not having any fun unrealistic as all hell makes it impossible for the message to be learned.
12:21 So the episode gives us no idea what the consequence of all work and no play is.
12:26 Besides, there's a fine line between work and play that's harder to determine than you'd expect, because anything can count as play if it's something you want to do for fun above other things.
12:36 Even though it could be hard work.
12:38 How do you know what's work and what's play?
12:41 That's an important thing to establish for the audience members who are workaholics to have any chance of learning from this message.
12:49 It's surprisingly easy to not know what play is, as easy as you just looking back on it with pride because you accomplished it.
12:55 For an easy example, beating a bad video game.
12:58 You would think of it as play, but it's not because you usually didn't enjoy it.
13:02 You just beat it to give yourself an excuse to never play it again.
13:05 To say you accomplished beating it.
13:08 So something you do for play can easily just be work if you don't let yourself care enough about your own feelings while doing it.
13:15 So a more valuable message would not just be that you should have a little fun every day, because that's a Captain Obvious essence.
13:23 And what the hell kind of kid would need that message?
13:26 A message of "take a 5 minute video game break every 5 minutes while keeping track of time and keep getting new fun games when you're done with them" might be far more useful and effective than Sabrina getting treated like she was in the wrong for becoming very successful.
13:42 You'd think her and her child would have escaped much earlier than 2 weeks when she "leaves whenever she wants".
13:48 And you'd think she wouldn't be pure evil because Sabrina isn't.
13:52 She didn't explain what she wanted to come out during the day, so the whole resolution is forced.
13:58 She comes to an agreement with her that she should have just been told to resolve to do much earlier.
14:05 This episode's message has to be gotten right more than any of the other ones.
14:11 Because it's relevant to all ages.
14:13 So I think this is the message the show wants the worst.
14:17 Not the message of anywhere but here.
14:19 At least there I can totally understand bitter adults who hate work down the show writing an episode where adulthood sucks, but there's no reason to not do the best job with this message.
14:29 Being a workaholic is glorified here.
14:32 Because Sabrina's grades skyrocketed.
14:36 Just because Quigley nagged her once, she somehow came to the conclusion that she wasn't even allowed a little fun every day or else she'd be guaranteed to grow up with no self-respect.
14:45 It doesn't take all day to do all of her homework.
14:48 I'd assume she was spending all of her playtime reading the same school books repeatedly to memorize them.
14:54 And this is all because Quigley nagged her.
14:57 He never apologizes for this.
15:00 Also, if she could've just cast a spell or used a potion to make herself an expert in her school subjects, or simply zapped the grade to change it to an A every time, she would've also avoided the whole plot.
15:12 She should've known she didn't need to give up on all fun to be a success, because she could also use magic to brainwash people to hire her.
15:20 And eventually she'd find a job she'd be good at and like.
15:24 It's not like Sabrina to think that she couldn't be happy with an unimportant job.
15:29 She loved being an ice cream truck driver in one comic.
15:31 This story is contrived, though I find it cathartic that Brini's torturing the family.
15:37 Maybe I do like this episode.
15:39 But it still demonizes the spell she cast and screwed up the message.
15:44 Bitch.