If I was Executive Producer...

[Deleted]

If you were the Executive Producer of Charmed, what it have been like? In other words, what's your Dream Charmed? Particularly if you had to put up with what happened in Real Life - Shannen Doherty & Alyssa Milano's feud; even if she not been fired, Doherty probably not having wanted to stay; Julian McMahon and "Nip N Tuck"; Rose McGowan not wanting to stay for a long period of time - how would you have handled?

Here's mine:

SEASON ONE
Starring Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano
Costarring Carlos Gomez and Brian Krause

My Dream Charmed begins the series by showing the townspeople of Salem, MA. getting ready to hang Melinda Halliwell [Tyler Layton] as a witch as she tells them her vision of the future Charmed Ones. Even as she drops, we cut to modern-day San Francisco.

The rest of Season One is similar to the original with some differences, mainly in the backstory and what comes from it.

Prue [Shannen Doherty] has never had a boyfriend because she closed her heart after the death of her mother. Instead she’s been taking care of her sisters and Grams [Jennifer Rhodes]. Roger [Matthew Ashford] isn’t her fiancé but just her supervisor, who is fired after her bosses find out that he stole her ideas, so they make her one of the Buckland managers instead.

Just like the original, she’s a bit stiff, a bit strait-laced, but loosens up as the season goes along, as she feels sympathy for the innocents they are saving and anger at the villains (both male and female, both magical and non-magical) who are after them.

Piper [Holly Marie Combs] is the same as the original, except that she was never a banker…she didn’t have to be, since Prue was the one who took care of Grams, so since graduation from high school, she has always worked at Quake, even when she was at cooking school. Otherwise, no need to change her or her and Leo’s [Brian Krause] story.

Just like the original, she’s the one who least wants to be a witch, but goes along with her sisters, especially when she sees how much their powers can help people.

Although Phoebe [Alyssa Milano] was the wild child and moved away to New York after Grams’ death, she found herself there and now wants to go back to school, the reason why she moves back in with her sisters.

Just like the original, she’s the one who finds the Book of Shadows and says the spell that activates their magic, and she’s the one most fascinated with magic.

The other major difference is that Andy is not part of this first season. Instead Inspector Rodriguez [Carlos Gomez], a warlock, spends the whole season trying to expose the Charmed Ones, working with the various magical villains to try to frame the Charmed Ones for crimes by placing them at the scene where innocents that he himself killed died.

Other than these and the changes that would obviously be needed thanks to them - like the fact that it's Piper who thinks that Phoebe slept with her former boyfriend, while Prue treats them like two children who should be sent to their rooms - the season is pretty much the same.

But this season also deals with the theme that with great powers comes great responsibility, something that is important for the sisters to learn right away, before they start having relationships - that protecting innocents must always come before their personal lives - if it doesn't, they will either lose their powers or lose their lives.

After the Charmed Ones first receive their powers, they use them to protect innocents but also use them to punish people they think have done wrong. At the end of the season, the Elders send them to a future similar to “Morality Bites”, where all three sisters are arrested for being witches and will be burnt the next day by Prosecutor Rodriguez rather than Nathaniel Pratt.

While in the future, the Charmed Ones discover that Rodriguez is a warlock, even as they learn that magic is to be used to protect the innocent, not punish the guilty. Once they learn their lesson - and unlike the original series, they won't forget it - they are transported back to their present just as each of them begins to feel the agony of the fire.

There, when Rodriguez shows up to arrest them for some trumped-up charge, the Charmed Ones vanquish him.

This is also when the Angel of Destiny shows up. Now that the Halliwells finally realize just what they are in for, they are given the option of keeping their powers or losing them and forgetting that they ever had them, as has happened with other sets of three sisters descended from Melinda Halliwell - the three cousins in "Pardon My Past" are actually three sisters, all with the last name of Halliwell - in my Charmedverse, Halliwell women truly have kept their maiden name.

But despite what happened in the future, this current set of sisters agree that they’re going to have to stick together through it all. All of their petty disagreements with each other are forgotten as they agree to continue to walk towards their destiny.

SEASON TWO
Starring Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano
Costarring Brian Krause, Ted King, Neil Roberts and Leigh-Allyn Baker

Andy [Ted King] takes Rodriguez's place as the inspector who works with the sisters, and reunites with his high school sweetheart. He is amazed by how much Phoebe has matured, while Phoebe is just as amazed to find out that her once just-as-wild boyfriend is now a San Francisco inspector. After one of her premonitions helps her and her sisters help him solve one of his most-difficult cases, she decides to change her major in college and starts taking forensic classes, so they continue to work on cases together. She uses her power of premonitions to find out what’s going to happen and her visions of the past (which she gets when she touches one of the pieces of evidence) to find out what has happened. Before saying a word to Andy, she brings the cases home to her sisters, where they are able to figure out how to protect the innocents by getting rid of the perpetrator. If the perp is non-magical (which happens just as often as them being magical), Phoebe helps Andy solve it so that he can arrest the perp. If the perp is magical, the Charmed Ones figure out how to vanquish the perp.

Halfway through the season, Andy discovers Phoebe’s secret. Just like the original, he can accept her as a witch, but not as a wife, until Phoebe almost dies trying to save one of their victims. That’s when Andy realizes that he loves her no matter if she's a witch or not and pops the question, and she gladly accepts.

Meanwhile Piper becomes the manager of Quake, while her relationship with Leo grows more serious, and she starts wondering if a whitelighter can marry his charge. The Elders think they are growing way too close, and this may interfere in their work just like it did with Piper’s mother and her whitelighter – the reason why the rule of whitelighters and witches aren’t allowed to marry was even created.

Piper doesn’t know anything about this – she just knows that she’s falling in love with Leo. The only problem that she can see is when they try to date and Piper discovers that dating a man who is dead and has no identity can definitely be a problem. She continues to bemoan the fact that as a witch she can’t have a normal life.

Meanwhile, Prue's bosses from the first season turn out to be warlocks trying to figure out how to steal the sisters' powers now that Rodriguez has failed. Rex Buckland [Neal Roberts] and Hannah Webster [Leigh-Allyn Baker] make Prue's job a living hell such as making her work long hours without paying her overtime, constantly setting things up so it appears that she has either stolen items or embezzled funds, sending her to clients that they know are magical bad-guys, etc. until they finally team up with Tempus at the end of the season.

The series finale plays out much as it did in the original Charmed’s Season One finale, with Rex and Hannah taking Rodriguez’ spot, except no one intervenes. Each time the Charmed Ones keep missing out on the fact that it's Rex and Hannah who are the warlocks working with Tempus. Also, rather than Andy, it’s an innocent who dies during each time loop.

The Elders realize what is happening and summon Leo to them, telling him what’s going on. They also warn him that he must stop seeing Piper or suffer the consequences, because the Elders’ fears have come true – Piper and Leo’s emotions, and the fact that they keep trying to protect each other, is the reason why it's the innocent who keeps dying rather than one of the Charmed Ones.

But Leo can’t let Piper die. He orbs in and interrupts the time loop. Even though he helps the Charmed Ones vanquish Rex and Hannah and save the innocent, Leo is forced away, just like in “Magic Hour,” which is the last scene in the season. (Nope, in my dream series, the season doesn’t always end with the door closing…)

SEASON THREE
Starring Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano
Costarring Brian Krause, Ted King and Julian McMahon

Leo has now been missing for three months and Piper has been doing everything she can to find him or bring him back. Ever since he vanished, she has been on strike, just like she did in the beginning of the original Season Three, and just like then, it's not until she's almost the cause of a young girl losing her life that she changes her mind and helps save both the little girl and the fairy from the gremlins.

The Elders return Leo, but now his wings are clipped - he is mortal, because whitelighters and charges who fall in love and can’t do their jobs aren’t allowed to be together - and unlike the original, he never gets them back, nor are the sisters ever given a new whitelighter - they've had one for their first year and are now on their own, just like all nascent witches.

But because my Elders are truly good, as well as just, they thank Leo for everything he did during his 80 years as a whitelighter by having the Angel of Destiny allow Leo to live the life he would’ve lived had he not died in World War II - as far as the world is concerned, he was born the same year as Prue was and for the last ten years, he has been a full-fledged doctor with his own clinic, caring for patients who can’t afford to pay others.

The following episodes are similar to the early ones in the original Season Two that didn’t include Leo, but with Leo playing Dan’s role, while continuing to use his knowledge that came from being a whitelighter for 80 years to help the Charmed Ones protect the innocent. Piper falls for this Leo even harder than she had for the whitelighter, because they can now have a semi-normal relationship, and we never again hear Piper whine about wanting a normal life.

Meanwhile, Phoebe and Andy continue to solve crimes with the help of her sisters, keeping the focus of the show on innocents, as we see all of the innocents and villains that we saw in the original Season Two, even as they happily plan their wedding, which will include both a hand-fasting and a big church wedding.

We also see another villain, one of the two Big Bads of the series, although if this was truly the first time we’d see the show, we wouldn’t know it. When the sisters end up having to testify at a trial, Prue takes a liking to Assistant District Attorney Cole Turner [Julian McMahon], and he returns the favor. But when he asks her out, she refuses. Only after she meets Cupid [Michael Riley Burke] and becomes his ring, does she open her heart and accept Cole's offer.

They fall madly in forbidden love even as he tries to kill Piper and Phoebe with the Triad's help, while trying to turn Prue evil. The season plays out like the original Season Three did with Prue taking Phoebe’s role, until she finds out that Cole is truly Belthazor [Michael Bailey Smith].

Unlike the original Phoebe, Prue doesn’t lie to her sisters and instead joins them in trying to vanquish Cole who they now know is Belthazor, no matter how much the idea breaks Prue's heart.

Finally he convinces her that for love of her, he will give up evil, and she agrees to let him back into her life. He pretends to be good, even as he continues to try to turn her evil.

In the season finale, Andy and Phoebe are hand-fasted in front of family and friends, but right after Grams tells Andy to kiss his bride, Shax attacks. The Charmed Ones manage to ward off Shax without vanquishing him, but in the process, they are exposed.

Unlike the original, the Charmed Ones stick together – unlike the original Phoebe, Prue has never considered the idea of a potion to turn Cole good – she’s still determined to turn him good all by herself no matter if he wants to (he doesn’t - unlike the original Cole, he's not half-human/half-demon, but instead is pure demon) or not.

When things go from bad to worse and Piper is shot, Phoebe and Leo take Piper to the hospital where Piper dies even as Phoebe and Leo are shot by the snipers.

Meanwhile, Prue summons Cole and tells him to have Tempus turn back time so she can save her sister who is also her best friend. He agrees to do this only if he can have what he wants.

A deal is struck - time is reset by Tempus after Prue stays in the Underworld and joins the dark side, including drinking the Seer’s [Debbi Morgan] potion which truly turns her evil.

Again the hand-fasting takes place, but Phoebe, whose powers has helped her remember what happened before, insists that just the family of the Charmed Ones attend. Phoebe is upset that her big sister isn’t there, but insists that the hand-fasting still takes place. Again no sooner does Grams tell Andy to kiss his bride than Shax attacks and because without Prue, the Charmed Ones can’t even ward him off, everyone is hurt, and Leo, Piper and Phoebe, who have been thrown through the wall, all appear dead.

SEASON FOUR
Starring Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano
Costarring Brian Krause, Ted King and Julian McMahon
(The WB has warned me that unless I stop all the bad publicity being generated due to the bad blood between Shannen and Alyssa, they will pull the plug on the series. Rather than firing someone, I announce to the actresses that this will be the last season, and Shannen and Alyssa agree that they can act like friends for one season, especially because the plot will be set up so they won’t have many scenes together.)

The season starts where we left off. Prue is now evil and in the Underworld with Cole. Piper and Phoebe are near-death. Leo, who also appeared near-death, wakes up and is able to stabilize Piper and Phoebe using his doctor skills instead of the supernatural abilities he no longer has before calling 911.

Once the sisters are out of the hospital, and after Phoebe and Andy have their big church wedding, they try to rescue Prue and instead find that she doesn't want to be rescued; that she's enjoying being evil, made worse each time she drinks more of the Seer's potion.

With Prue at his side, Cole has stopped pretending and instead they raise hell. Prue manages to turn the entire magical community against her sisters just like the Jenkinses did in the original Season Eight.

Cole and Prue now proclaim themselves the leaders of the Underworld, but the evil denizens have gone for centuries without any leaders and don't like that idea now, so Prue and Cole have to put down a few revolts while Piper and Phoebe struggle to save innocents with only a power of two and the need to overcome their personal feelings regarding what they should to do about Prue and Cole, unable to bring themselves to vanquish their sister, even if she is now evil. The danger is more real than ever because Piper and Phoebe have to find a way to avoid high-level demons, since they are short one in the Power of Three.

Eventually Cole and Prue put down all of the revolts and are crowned Leaders of the Underworld in a ceremony much like the one in the original Season Four. Cole then sends his most powerful minions after Piper and Phoebe, attacking them personally and playing on their weaknesses,

In the midst of all of this, Phoebe graduates from college and begins working at the police station with Andy. They don’t try for children at all due to the danger that’s swirling around them.

Instead, it’s Prue who finds herself five months pregnant, so not certain what the Seer's potion will do to her child, she stops drinking it, which lets her sisters finally be able to reach her, like the original ones did with Billie and with Evil Phoebe.

With the Power of Three reunited, they are finally able to vanquish Shax, but not Cole. Their bond as sisters has been broken and they can’t vanquish Cole that easily. As the season ends, he tells them that he's going to come back for his son so he can raise him as his evil heir.

SEASON FIVE
Starring Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano
Costarring Brian Krause, Ted King and Julian McMahon
(“Charmed” has received higher ratings during Season Four than ever before, the highest any cable series has ever received, even higher than most network shows, and even won a number of Emmies, including one for Charmed as best drama and me as best executive producer—hey, it’s my Dream Charmed, so if I’m going to dream, I’m going to dream big!

Thanks to this, the WB wants the actresses to sign new four-year contracts. But Shannen is getting bored and wants to move on, even though both Holly Marie and Alyssa want to continue the series and sign their new contracts. Shannen agrees to stay for one more season as long as I agree to let her do a lot more directing. We also agree that since this will be her final season, I will give her character the great send-off her fans deserve.

Julian also agrees to sign a new one-year contract before starting filming on “Nip ‘n Tuck", but that will be it. Both agree to do guest appearances, but only if their character is truly needed.)

Piper and Phoebe are still having a hard time trusting Prue, and this trust is made far worse by the fact that Prue is still pregnant with Cole's child, and despite the fact that they beg her to get rid of it, she refuses because she already loves her unborn child, especially because unlike the original, the child shows no signs of having powers, witch or demon. This weakens their bond as sisters and makes them vulnerable until halfway through the season when they finally forgive one another.

Their bond becomes complete when Phoebe tells Prue that she’s also pregnant, and Piper tells her that she and Leo are going to be married and despite Prue’s advanced pregnancy, she wants Prue to be her matron of honor.

Cole eventually accepts the fact that Prue is done with him, especially when he finds out that she plans to keep their child away from him, while he still wants to raise his son as his evil heir. He kidnaps the sisters and has the Seer try to steal the child, but unlike the original, that doesn't work and the sisters are able to escape with Prue still pregnant.

Near the end of the season, Leo and Piper are first hand-fasted by Grams and then married in a small church wedding just as Prue goes into labor. She gives birth to the child, but rather than the son who Cole expected, it’s a girl who she names Patricia Victoria after her parents, and who her sisters immediately nickname Trish.

In the season finale, they convince Grams to perform a wiccaning so the baby has a chance to be good. Grams agrees only if the sisters agree to let her first bind her powers until she’s old enough to handle them…whatever they might be. Grams wants to cast the same spell she used on the sisters after the events of "That Seventies Episode", which will not only bind her powers, but also keep her off of Evil's radar until when and if her powers are unbound.

Right in the midst of her casting the spell, Cole appears, trying to prevent this and the wiccaning from happening to his daughter. But he knows the Charmed Ones too well. With him he has an innocent and he has an athame to her throat. He tells Prue either give him his daughter who he will rename Elizabeth after his own mother, or he'll kill the innocent.

The sisters are in a quandry, especially Prue - she can't give away her daughter to Cole to be raised evil, but she can't allow an innocent to be killed just so Trish will be saved. After a bit (with Cole taunting her during all of this), Prue decides what to do.

She has Piper freeze Cole and then she uses her TK to throw the innocent across the floor, although this knocks the innocent out. Then Prue begins chanting the spell the sisters had tried before, but hadn't succeeded in vanquishing Cole because their bond wasn't strong enough. But now their bond is and it succeeds in vanquishing Cole, but the power of that vanquish throws them across the room before the flames from the vanquish rush towards their innocent. Although it won't reach the sisters, it will kill the innocent.

Piper tries freezing it, but she can’t. Instead Prue, whose power to move thing with her mind has grown over the years, especially while she was evil, is able to use her power to keep it back, telling her sisters to grab their innocent and run. They beg her not to do this, but Prue tells them to take good care of Trish for her.

Crying, Piper and Phoebe grab their innocent and then run out of the door just as Prue is no longer able to hold back the flames. Leo, Andy, Piper and Phoebe quickly return with fire extinguishers and put out the flames, but it's much too late to save Prue.

Grams’ ghost returns and first she finishes binding Trish's powers and then wiccans her. Then, even as Piper and Phoebe cry over their lost sister's burnt body, Grams helps Prue’s ghost make the crossing to the other side, where we see Patty welcome her into the Light, as the season ends.

SEASON SIX
Starring Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano, and Rose McGowan as “Paige”
Costarring Brian Krause, Ted King, Oded Fehr and Ivan Sergei
(Alyssa’s agent isn’t happy about her not having the lead credit now that Shannen is gone, but she’s under contract...They continue to be listed in the order of the Charmed Ones’ ages. There are also rumors going around that Ted King either wants a bigger role for Andy, or be allowed to leave and try to star in a spin-off featuring Andy starting over in a new city. I refuse to confirm or deny this rumor and so does Ted.)

Piper and Phoebe are mourning their sister, and Andy and Leo are also broken up while trying to comfort their wives. Piper uses Trish to try to cast a “find a lost witch” spell and it plays out just like the original “Charmed Again” with a couple of major exceptions.

First, Piper doesn't try this until the third episode - the first two are dedicated to letting Piper and Phoebe (and Prue's fans) remember and mourn their sister (the funeral is full of flashbacks) before being forced to accept a new sister.

Second, Phoebe is so upset by Prue's death that she ends up miscarrying her baby, which also upsets Andy. This puts a huge strain on his and Phoebe's relationship, and before Paige even becomes part of the family, Phoebe and Andy decide to separate for now while considering divorce. Phoebe even quits the force so she doesn’t have to work with him.

Third, even before this, we do get a chance to get to know Paige [Rose McGowan], but only as the innocent who Prue saved during the Season Five finale, including seeing her at the funeral, not due to any spell but due to the fact that she wants to be able to honor Prue for saving her life...unknown to the Charmed Ones or Cole, the innocent Prue saved is their own youngest sister.

The other main difference is that unlike the original, the Elders have always known about Paige - they knew when Patty was pregnant. They were the ones who wanted her kept away from her sisters since they knew that the power of four would be too powerful and the first time all four sisters tried to use it, it would've ended up killing all four sisters. They also wanted Paige's power to orb (her only power at birth) bound in order to protect her from evil and to keep her from exposing magic. Like I've said before, my Elders are both good and just.

Once the sisters do reconstitute the Power of Three - similar to Charmed Again, but starting when Paige appears at the door, although different since there is no Shax or Source and because this is three episodes into the season - Paige now has Prue's power to move things with her mind, which works exactly as Prue's did (and like Prue, she never gets the power of astral projection or any other new powers). Her power to orb remains her only whitelighter power - she is just the daughter of a whitelighter who inherited one of his powers; she's not a whitelighter herself since she's not dead. Meanwhile Piper continues to just have the power to freeze time and Phoebe continues to just have the power to see both the past and the future. There have been upgrades, but only in control and distance, not in gaining different powers.

Meanwhile, the denizens of the Underworld have gotten used to having leaders. During those first couple of episodes, with Cole vanquished and Prue gone, they battle each other for supremacy, but no one is truly strong enough to take over as Cole and Prue did. Finally, around the same time that the Power of Three is reconstituted, the Seer talks them into releasing the previous leader who was imprisoned centuries ago after a revolt. He is the other main Big Bad of the series.

Zankou [Oded Fehr] wants to stop this new set of Charmed Ones before they can become too powerful, but Paige chooses to be with her newly-found half-sisters, and Zankou leaves…for now.

Instead, during the rest of the season we constantly see him in the background, wearing various disguises, but watching the sisters, learning their habits, and plotting.

Meanwhile Leo’s practice has become very successful as he continues to help people who need it but can’t afford it, while Piper has decided that life is too short to stay with a job she hates, so she quits and uses the money she made as a manager to open up her own restaurant, which she names P4 after her and her three sisters, and it’s a huge success.

At the same time, Piper and Phoebe are determined to keep their niece – the only piece of Prue that they have left – safe to the point of interfering with their destiny of protecting innocents.

Paige feels like an outcast in the family and feels like they only need her to take Prue's place in the Power of Three (which is the truth), which causes her to grow close to her best friend Glen [Ivan Sergei] and they take things to the next level.

Halfway through the season, Paige finally confronts her sisters about her feelings, and they have an emotional blowout where they finally truly accept her as part of the family, and offer her the chance to move into Prue’s old room. For the first time, they also let her hold her niece and spend some time with the little girl.

The new Charmed Ones’ bond finally becomes strong, and they’re finally able to vanquish high-level demons, something they couldn’t do before - they could make them vanish like the original Prue and Piper did to Shax during “All Hell Breaks Loose”, but they couldn’t vanquish them.

The season ends with Phoebe and Andy no longer able to stand being apart. They plan to meet up, and Phoebe arrives to find Andy dead by Zankou's hands. Zankou smiles evilly at her and us before flaming away.

SEASON SEVEN
Starring Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan
Costarring Brian Krause, Ivan Sergei and Oded Fehr

(Rose is already starting to grouse about being stuck with doing television - she thought last season would be the last one and cried when she found out there would be another one. Holly wants time with her family. Alyssa would like to try something else. I want Charmed to end out on a high note and I start making plans to make this the last Charmed season.

Halfway through the season, The WB tries to get another season going, but they want me to come up with a new character than I can then spin off, to keep the franchise going. They even come up with the idea of a young blonde witch, maybe played by Kaley Cucuo, who the sisters can train to replace them, but who has a sister of her own - together they are even more powerful than the sisters. The WB even suggest that we find three other actresses to be the sisters glamored so that the actresses can take a break.

But I won't do that to my series or my characters. This continues to be the last season. I'll be sure to keep the ending open-ended, so that if The WB wants to continue it, they can, but they'll have to do it without me. The actors applaud my decision; Holly Marie leaks it to TV Guide, and all the fans cheer the thought that we care for the characters as much as they do.)

Phoebe is obsessed with getting revenge for Andy’s death, and no one can comfort her until the Avatars turn to her for help in creating Utopia in exchange for having a world where Prue and Andy are still alive, and magical perps aren't part of their everyday life. Phoebe accepts and convinces her sisters to join the cause for a better world.

During the 150th episode, a mysterious young woman [Charisma Carpenter] appears and warns them that the Avatars are not to be trusted. They don't listen to her and Utopia is created without them realizing that free will has been taken away. The woman, who says her name is Chris, turns to the one person who was responsible for starting it all, Phoebe.

With Chris’ help, Phoebe remembers all the losses and what they learned about the wrong thing done for the right reason is still wrong, and she finally admits that taking away the world's free will just so she can have her own little utopia simply isn't right. She sets out to convince her sisters to stop the Avatars. With help from the Elders, and from Prue and Andy, the war is finally won. Utopia is reversed and the Charmed Ones say goodbye to Andy and Prue in a tearful farewell as they rejoin Patty and Grams in the Afterlife in a scene reminiscent of the ending of the movie “Ghost”.

The Elders try to reward Chris by making her the Charmed Ones’ new charge, something she insists she can’t do; that she must return home, and instead asks to be returned to the Halliwell attic.

Once she’s there, we see a triquetra portal open just as Leo happens to walk into the attic. He wants to know what is going on.

This is when Chris finally admits that she’s from the future which is why she knew when to come back in order to stop the Avatars and prevent the world that she came from from happening.

He asks her who she really is, so after making him promise not to tell the Charmed Ones, she first apologizes for misleading them and then finally admits that Chris isn’t really her name. She is engaged to a phoenix witch named Christopher Perry and she decided to use a version of his name so they wouldn’t suspect that she is actually a future version of Trish. Before he can ask anything else, she steps through the portal and is gone, the end of the 150th episode, the only time "Chris" appears in the series.

The sisters continue with their lives, finally having them back on track. Leo and Piper couldn't be happier. The restaurant is doing well along with Leo's practice, and they’ve finally decided to start trying for children of their own. Paige and Glen are still together and going strong, while Paige is now a full-time social worker. Phoebe feels left out but is content taking care of her niece. She has also returned to her police work, keeping her sisters’ focus on protecting innocents.

Then, near the end of the season, Zankou returns. Doing some research, they discover that the only way to prevent Zankou from taking over the Manor and turning the Manor and the wiccan nexus into a center for evil is to truly sacrifice themselves. This is an extremely difficult decision, but even Leo and Glen agree that it’s something that must be done, and the men agree to take good care of little Trish while never unbinding her powers, since they wouldn’t be able to help her handle them.

During the series finale which combines both “Something Wicca This Way Goes” and “Forever Charmed” the Charmed Ones risk their lives in a big, fiery finale, fully expecting to die, but Paige manages to panic-orb away. Piper and Phoebe are left for dead - the first time any of the Charmed Ones have died except for Prue - but finding the same spell that Chris used to come back in time, Paige goes back in time to try to save her half-sisters. She never goes forward in time so we never see any of the Charmed Ones or Leo as old, so we will always have no idea of what happens to anyone in the future, slamming the door on any future spin-off or movie.

Instead Paige finds herself with the earlier versions of the Charmed Ones, from circa Season One or Two, with the three actresses dressed to look like them, like they did during "Pre-Witched". Simply telling them that she is one of their innocents who they saved but that she wants to try to figure a way to save the sisters after a fiery vanquish killed them, Paige gives no clues as to when this happened or which perp they were vanquishing, simply telling them she doesn't want to change the future too much.

Prue wants to know if they used the Power of Three spell to protect themselves. Paige, who has never heard of the Power of Three spell, has to admit that she doesn't think so, so Piper suggests they try it. Phoebe teaches her the simple spell and then Paige thanks all three sisters before the original Charmed Ones use the spell from That Seventies Episode to send her home.

Paige phases back into her body as soon as she arrives - just like time travelers to the future always have - just as the Charmed Ones cast the spell to vanquish Zankou. Even as the flames rush towards them, Paige grabs her half-sisters' hands and start chanting the Power of Three spell. Her sisters join in, even as their hearts ache, thinking that had they remembered it before, Prue might still be alive. The spell protects them from the explosion, which is what killed Piper and Phoebe the first time around, and, of course, is also very similar to the explosion that killed Prue.

In the happy but not sappy ending, we see the sisters six months later. Piper now pregnant with her own child, Phoebe holding Trish, and Paige showing off her new engagement ring, decide to write down all the things that went on since Piper and Phoebe became witches, so that they can pass it onto the next generation. As they walk up the stairs towards the attic and the Book of Shadows, they stop to reminisce about the various pictures on the wall, which allows us to see flashbacks connected with them:

• Paige and Glen’s brand-new engagement picture
  
  
• Piper and Leo’s wedding picture
  
  
• Phoebe and Andy’s wedding picture
  
  
• a picture of the sisters hanging out at P4
  
  
• a picture of Leo standing in front of his practice
  
  
• a picture of Paige standing in front of South Bay Social Services
  
  
• a picture of Phoebe and Andy standing in front of the San Francisco Police Department
  
  
• a picture of Prue holding a newborn Trish
  
  
• a picture of Piper inside Quake
  
  
• a picture of Prue inside her Buckland’s office
  
  
• a frame showing various old pictures of Paige at various ages with her adopted parents and with Glen
  
  
• a frame showing various old pictures of the Halliwells at various ages with Grams, Patty, Victor and Andy.
  
  
• the picture of the original Charmed Ones that Grams took the day she died.

As the Charmed Ones open the door to the attic and pass through, closing the door behind them, the camera goes back to the picture Grams took of the original Charmed Ones.

Then there’s a bit of magic and Paige becomes part of it, too, which is the end of the series. Anything that comes later is left for an spin-off.

So?? What do you think of *this* version??? And if *you* could've been the Executive Producer of Charmed, what would *your* Dream Charmed be like??