Tuesday 16 October 2012

Playercharacterons - UNITE!

A new UK genre show called Switch started last night on ITV2. Back in the day, “a new UK genre show” would be the mark of a freak conjunction of the planets, but nowadays we have a few scattered about here and there. This one in particular is not built with geeks like me in mind, being a light comedy-drama about sisterly bonding for a coven of four twentysomething witches where magic appears to be a way to cause amusing misunderstandings.

One thing I’ll take away from it, though, is that the four “elements” (building on ideas of power multiplication seen in The Craft and swiped by Charmed) apparently can’t do anything magical unless they’re all involved and in agreement.

Which would be an interesting complication for the Big Gun of a setting, as long as the players were willing to play fair with it and kept to character conflicts. You can only shoot fireballs if everyone thinks it’s a good idea. Or if everyone holds hands. Or...

6 comments:

  1. Switched is sitting on my Sky+ box waiting for me to summon up the courage to watch it. From the trailers it appears to be, as you hinted, a British take on Charmed... although I fear without the "charm". Is it worth an hour of my life?

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    1. It's amiable sitcommy stuff, could have been on at 8pm if not for one precision F-bomb. The fantasy elements are decidedly small fry.

      It isn't the kind of show I'd make, so it doesn't outrage me with its failings like, say, Demons. Just not my cuppa.

      I probably won't watch any more, but don't mind the hour I spent with it (and a magazine).

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    2. Thanks, Craig. Was I the only person on the planet who actually rather enjoyed Demons?

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  2. So I won't mention my DARK SHADOWS giveaway then... http://www.heropress.net/2012/10/dark-shadows-blu-ray-triple-play.html (makes a great Christmas present if you don't have a Blu-Ray player yourself)

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