Previewing Witches of East End: A Dude's Review of Lifetime vol. III

In a measure of full disclose, I should first state that I am male and thus outside Lifetime’s target audience, but since the channel was nice enough to let me watch their screeners, I feel obligated to do my due diligence to promote their new programs. There latest offering is Witches of East End (witches: another source of entertainment I do not fall into the core demographic for). Please note this is not another retelling of The Witches of Eastwick, the last of which did not last a full season on ABC just four years ago. This based on another book of the same name released just two years ago.

The show follows a modern day witch, Julia Ormond (last seen in a ballroom with Roger Sterling) who has been “cursed” with immortality. But the rub is that though she stays timeless, her children keep on dying as a part of the curse, the same two children are born again right after they die because as Salam taught us, no one likes witches. So in their most recent incarnation, Julie has decided not to tell her daughters about their supernatural gift.

And then in the span of days, one daughter Jenna Dewan-Tatum (the short-lived The Playboy Club) wishes her soon to be mother-in-law to chock on an appetizer only for it to happen making her think she has some special power, which she does. While the more skeptical daughter, Rachel Boston (American Dreams) jokingly performs a fertility spell she got off the internet to help a co-worker get pregnant, which shows up with a positive test the very next day. Oh yeah, and a dude crawls out a painting in their house. Things get more complicated and secrets harder to hide when Aunt Mädchen Amick (Dream Lover) the more wild-child sibling and has the more humorous “curse”, who has not spoke with her sister since the seventies, which was long before her niece’s latest incarnation

It has to be said: Jenna Dewan-Tatum is not a good actress. I have to wonder how she even cast in this. My working theory is that the people who go to her husband’s movie are the network’s target demo so they hope older woman will see “Tatum” and hope she may be able to wrangle her husband for a guest spot. Rachel Boston is much better as the more comedic sister, especially when she starts going on about “goat orgies” and on the show does work in a library with Tom Lenk who was the best part of the later Buffy the Vampire Slayer seasons. He only gets a line or two in the Pilot but hopefully he pops up for longer in future episodes. As you may have not noticed, Lenk is the first guy I mentioned because like most Lifetime shows and movies, this one is populated with boring actors cast straight from the Ambrocrombie catalogue and as so boring they could very well just be reanimated poster cut-outs (this is a show about witches so it is possible).

But as the third Lifetime that I have given a try, Witches of East End was the most entertaining by far. And at its best it could rival Ironside for the best new hate-watching show of the fall. Unfortunately for both shows, there is plenty of good shows on this fall, there may not be any time to hate-watch anything unless you want to save it for the holiday repeats or next summer.

Witches of East End airs Sundays at 10:00 on Lifetime. You wil be able to download Witches of East End on iTunes.