Shannen Doherty's Support Of The ‘Charmed’ Reboot Is Focused On The Fans

Details about the show's new storyline have drawn mixed emotions, but Shannen Doherty says she supports the Charmed reboot — as long as the creators focus on what's important to the fans. Doherty, who played Prue Halliwell for the first three seasons of the CW's supernatural drama, recently chimed in on Twitter with some thoughts about how she hopes the show's reboot will turn out.

"So curious," she tweeted on Jan. 27. "[If] it was not a reboot and just was a show about sisters and family dynamics with super natural powers.... thoughts?" Fans were quick to respond to Doherty's question, prompting the star to share some additional thoughts. "[I'm] intrigued by the idea that a new generation might be comforted, inspired like all you were," she said. "[Charmed] helped us all in some way."

Doherty's comments showed a decidedly different stance than that of her former co-star, Holly-Marie Combs, who slammed the reboot in a series of tweets just one day prior. "Here’s the thing," Combs tweeted on Jan. 26. "Until you ask us to rewrite [Charmed] like Brad Kern did weekly don’t even think of capitalizing on our hard work. [Charmed] belongs to the 4 of us, our vast amount of writers, crews and predominantly the fans. FYI you will not fool them by owning a title/stamp. So bye."

Despite Combs' harsh words about the reboot, both she and Doherty seem to share the same concern — the original show's fans. "Thank you for opening up my eyes," one fan tweeted to Doherty in response to her thoughts about the new show. "Without [Charmed], I would be a different person today. Serious. So, if this new show can do that for others, as you said, I'm all for it." Doherty's next tweet conveyed a seemingly subtle message to the reboot's creators, and emphasized her optimism. "I hope [the reboot's creators] respect the original and listen to [the fans] and make a show that’s inspired by [Charmed] that focuses on what’s important in life."

The original Charmed ran for eight seasons from 1998 to 2006, and in addition to Doherty and Combs (who played Piper Halliwell), the show also starred Alyssa Milano (as Phoebe Halliwell), and Rose McGowan (who played Paige Matthews from seasons 4 through 8). At its core, Charmed focused on the relationships between the four witchy sisters (McGowan's character was technically a half-sister), and was deemed "perfect post-feminist girl-power," by Vanessa Thorpe of The Guardian early on.

Critics of the reboot have been up in arms over the network's description of the new show, which calls it a "fierce, funny, feminist reboot of the original series" — as if the original series didn't already embody all of those things. "Their wording is terrible and a bit offensive," Doherty tweeted about the description. "But, everyone makes mistakes. Perhaps with the backlash they will be more thoughtful in future." One fan zeroed in on the network's use of the word "feminist," specifically, and asked Doherty for her opinion. "[Very] ignorant stupid comment," she responded via Twitter. "Perhaps [the description was] made by a millennial that never watched the show and just read a synopsis on it."

It seems like the creators and writers of the Charmed reboot have some serious work to do, in terms of winning over the fans (and stars) of the original show. Doherty's advice about how they should handle the new version, however, is pretty sound — they should definitely be listening to what the fans want (in the event they haven't been doing that already). In the meantime, here's hoping we can all do like Doherty and stay positive.