User Reviews

First I have to mention that Lady Godiva does not belong to my cultural folklore, so I'm probably missing a lot of the shock of actually seeing her appear in front of a gaggle of bored students. To me she's only a naked blonde riding a horse, which doesn't exactly strike me as a feminist emblem -rather the opposite, if you take my meaning. Fortunately, the script actually notices the paradox several times : as a woman, the less you wear, the more attention you get.

So as a whole the episode works, and it is fun. Paige's attempts to save the school fail to really move me, since the students look like a bunch of brats and Paige herself is a very unlikely headmistress, but the rest it good. There is a particularly good twist when you realize that by solving their problems the sisters have actually created a real disaster. While no one could believe that Godiva was solely responsible for the emancipation of women, the alternate reality is well done, in a frightful way. The best little detail is Leo's new persona : just as nice and not the least sexist no matter what, but more balanced. I like that because it is unexpected, it doesn't contribute anything to the main plot, but somehow it seems coherent. And what about him overdosing Dyson with his pain and rage ? In one instant, you go from laughing at Leo's dismay to feeling for him.

I love this episode. I love when Charmed brings real life people, or fairy tale characters, and things like that, into their episodes.

In this episode, Paige is trying to save Magic School. Whilst she's making her case to some Elder's, with all of the students around them, one of them conjures a very special person. Lady Godiva. The chocolate inspired lady herself. She shows up naked on a horse, and all of the Elders are mad at Paige. It annoys me so much, it's not her fault. Paige takes Lady Godiva home and tries to figure out how to send her back. Piper is not happy that another person has popped up from the history books. Meanwhile, a demon that was summoned along with Lady Godiva, absorbs everyone's pent up repression and causes massive violence and mayhem. When they finally send Lady Godiva back to her time, everything changes. It's puts woman's right back a couple of hundred years, with signs saying things like, "Woman talking in public will be flogged." And since they talk, they go to jail. They escape and Leo doesn't understand why they're dressed the way they are. The sisters find out that the demon killed Lady Godiva after they sent them back, and this caused the change. They re-summoned Lady Godiva and the demon, and vanquish him by letting him feed on Leo's repressions. It's gives him an overload or overdose, if you will, and causes him to die.

Overall, I give this episode an 8 out of 10.

« This is a family show », so does that mean being talked down by writers, who can't write without listing commonplaces and leaps? This episode is the very example of why the show became unwatchable. When all they do by trying to be deep, is lacking substance and subtlety. But like I said, back then it wasn't systematic, so it didn't bother me like it does now. It's the extreme plugging of preachiness we have now, that made that last scene unbearable and ridiculous. Why not attack those customers who urged the waiter, to tell Piper to breast feed elsewhere?... Especially when one of them was a woman, making Alyssa « Phoebe » Milano's grand speech, completely moot? Moving on. The rest of the episode was a way to save the magic school, and when you think about it, it makes the whole episode completely useless. As they could've done it under another « save ».

When Piper is kicked out of a restaurant for breast feeding her columnist sister launches a campaign against the company. I agree with Phoebe's ghost writer Lesley that she doesn't do causes or is it a big deal since it's indecent expose and may make the other customers uncomfortable. They clearly had a sign saying it was against rules and if unhappy they should leave instead of gripping.

Also by taking Lady out of her time along with a regression demon who grew weak because of it seems silly to have such a vast alternate reality where everyone dresses as Mormons, women are flogged for talking out of line or not taking care of children and magic is exposed driving them into allies. I know they want to get across even small acts have big consequences like the first story tries to tell, but it would've worked much better for Joan of Arc or even Catherine the great to appear. The only good story line is Piper confronting Leo for his self pity as he feels he was the only one to be betrayed and lose Chris yet as shown here both are grieving needing each other to cope through the pain.