Sabrina, The Teenage Witch - The First Season

Melissa Joan Hart, Nate Richert, Michelle Beaudoin, Janet Leigh Green. Sabrina is only 16 when her two aunts inform her of her supernatural powers and that her family on her dad's side are all witches. But the route to getting her witch's license from the Witch's Council is loaded with goof-ups and a whole new world of fun in this charming series. Includes all 24 first-season episodes on 4 DVDs. 1996-97/color/8 hrs., 46 min/NR.

Being a teenager is always difficult, but imagine how complicated things must be for a teenage witch trying to fit in at a mortal high school. In this first (1996) season of CBS Television's live-action Sabrina The Teenage Witch series, Sabrina's aunts Zelda and Hilda have provided their niece with a happy, relatively normal life following the divorce of her parents, but her 16th birthday brings a big surprise--it turns out that her aunts are witches who have known all along that Sabrina is half mortal and half witch. Now that she's turning 16, Sabrina suddenly finds herself in the possession of special powers which she must develop and learn to control. Even Sabrina's cat Salem turns out to be a witch imprisoned in a cat's body. After the initial shock and denial wear off, Sabrina discovers that there are some definite benefits to being able to turn back time and cast the occasional spell on her classmates. Essentially your typical teenager, Sabrina struggles with popularity, labels, and love along a journey toward personal growth and an understanding of the value of rules, the importance of self-esteem, and the universality of guilt and making mistakes. Sometimes magic eases Sabrina's way, while other times it seems only to complicate things. Whether hanging out in the world of high school and American suburbia, the red planet Mars, or the surreal Pleasure dome where a witch can have absolutely anything she wants, Sabrina is really just an average teenage witch struggling through adolescence. (Ages 8 and older) --Tami Horiuchi