The Charmed Ones find themselves trapped in a mysterious place which looks like our world but isn’t quite right, and must rely on one another to find a way to escape.

So, when at the end of the last episode the girls worked out that all the mysteriously appearing ancient baddies were obviously coming from some extra dimensional ‘Alcatraz for monsters’, it rang a bell for me – specifically the whole Tartarus subplot from season 1. So, yes we have another magical prison for bad guys, and in this episode the show rather skips forward a bit from that realisation and has the girls somehow trapped within it.

To be fair, that gap gets narratively justified by the time the credits roll, but aside from what is a nice use of the format, there really isn’t all that much here to delight. The girls all start out separated in the prison with no sign of Harry, and each of them left to work things out on their own before they all come together. And wouldn’t you know it, each of them has a personal struggle in the real world which is ‘solved’ for them by what they each learn about themselves on the journey out of the prison (sort of).

For Macy, it’s basically a challenge of balance. She’s finding running Safe Space difficult because the Board of Shae keeps insisting on things like ‘businesses making money’. I’d take that whole angle more seriously if not for the way it gets resolved, but to be fair lack of consistency is something I learned to accept from Charmed a long time ago. Suffice to say that Macy’s issue is that she needs to be more forceful and believe in herself more. Where have I heard that before, other than almost every other episode of this show?

Maggie is trying to avoid the destiny she seems to have foreseen for herself last week of ending up in bed with Antonio (oh the struggles of a young girl with a truly two-dimensional character). But if I’m honest the whole way that’s been framed suggests to me that she’s almost definitely not going to end up sleeping with the guy but the show just wants us to think she will in an attempt to create another love triangle for a character who has been almost exclusively defined by love triangles to date. Either way, her experience in the prison shows her that she needs to walk through fog. Or something.

Mel’s is the least connected of all – essentially she’s got herself into a bit of bother in the real world by allowing her emotions to get the better of her professionally. The resolution to this one actually has nothing to do with her experience in the prison (literally, it just kind of runs its course while she isn’t there) but she does have an argument with Macy in the prison about it so that they can both realise they’re sorry and love one another really when they get out.

Aside from the fact that it feels like another round of the characters being spoon fed the same lessons about themselves and having the exact same experiences that they’ve been having since the pilot, it’s also starting to feel like this is about the third or fourth meta plot that the show has started this season, and we are still only seven episodes in. Add in the weird familiarity of a ‘prison for baddies on an other dimensional plane’ and it’s less like the show is running in place and more like it’s already given up and is just sat on the floor.

Verdict: A trifecta of repetition as the Charmed Ones have a familiar adventure in a familiar setting going through familiar tropes. 4/10

Greg D. Smith