Charmed is an American television series that originally aired from October 7, 1998, until May 21, 2006, on The WB Television Network. The series was created in 1998 by writer Constance M. Burge and was produced by Aaron Spelling and his Spelling Television company, with the show runner being writer-director Brad Kern. The series narrative follows the four Halliwell sisters, Prue, Piper, Phoebe and, later, Paige, the culmination of the long Warren line of powerful, good witches. The sisters, despite being perceived as normal by the non-supernatural community, are known as The Charmed Ones in the magical community, whose prophesied destiny is to battle against evil beings, such as demons and warlocks, in order to protect innocent lives from being endangered. Each sister possesses unique magical powers that grow and evolve, while they attempt to hold normal working lives in San Francisco. Keeping their paranormal identities separate and secret from their ordinary lives forms part of the series' tension and challenges, with the exposure of magic having far-reaching consequences on relationships, and having resulted in a number of police and FBI investigations throughout the series.

The first episode, "Something Wicca This Way Comes", garnered 7.70 million viewers, breaking the record for the highest rated debut for the Warner Brothers Network.In January 2006, producer Brad Kern declared that Charmed was the longest running hour-long series featuring all female leads (Murder She Wrote having only a singular lead, and The Facts of Life being a 30 minute sitcom). The series finale, "Forever Charmed", ended with a season high of 4.49 million viewers.

Development

In 1998, the Warner Brothers Television Network began searching for a drama series, and looked to Spelling Television, which had produced the network's most successful series 7th Heaven, to create it. Expanding on the popularity of supernatural themed dramas, the production company explored forms of mythology to find mythological characters they could realize with contemporary storytelling.[5] In order to create the series, Burge was hired as the creator as she was under contract with Spelling Television after conceiving the drama Savannah. When the theme of witchcraft was first pitched to her, she was aware of stereotypes of witches (flying brooms, black cats, and warts). After Wicca research, she changed her perspective and aimed at telling a story of good witches who looked and acted like ordinary people. With this, her initial concept was a series set in Boston, Massachusetts about three friends and roommates who were all witches. However, executive producer E. Duke Vincent lacked confidence, asking "Why would anybody want to watch a show about three witches?" He proposed that the series focus on family values and developed the series-long mantra of it being about "three sisters who happen to be witches, not three witches who happen to be sisters." Spelling warmed to Burge's ideas and, after the concept was re-crafted to be a series about three sisters (now living in San Francisco) descended from a line of witches, it was pitched to the Warner Brothers's Susanne Daniels, who liked it, allowing the series to begin development.

Shannen Doherty, having worked with Spelling on Beverly Hills 90210, auditioned for the role of Piper Halliwell but won the role of Prue Halliwell. After the third season, Doherty left the series. As of September 14, 2009 it is still unclear whether she left the series because of differences with Alyssa Milano or was fired.

Doherty's best friend, Holly Marie Combs, known as Kimberly Brock from the series Picket Fences, became interested in the script and won the role of middle sister Piper Halliwell, although she auditioned for the role of Prue Halliwell.

The series was titled Charmed after Spelling's suggestion of House of Sisters was dropped, and the three lead roles were cast to Doherty, Combs, and Lori Rom. Burge wrote the pilot's script. They filmed a 28-minute version (the "unaired pilot", never aired on network television) with which the series was picked up by the WB. The majority of the pilot had to be re-filmed after Rom quit and Alyssa Milano took her role.

Upon its debut, Charmed received the largest audience for a series premiere in the network’s history.The first season of twenty-two episodes was picked up by Warner Brothers after two shows aired.