Maggie and Mel feel increasingly distanced from, and worried about their sister as she tries out her new powers with increasingly unpredictable results.

See what they did there? With the episode title? Remind you of anything? Perhaps another beloved genre franchise and its reboot? As naked attempts at using the brand awareness of another franchise to raise a grin among your own fanbase go, it’s right up there, and it’s a standard of ‘humour’ that really sets the tone for the writing of the whole episode.

Yes, last week Macy absorbed the power of The Source in order to prevent the end of the world, and the last thing we saw her do was resurrect on-again/off-again boyfriend Galvin after his noble sacrifice to try to stop the demon virus. This was a hint that Macy’s newfound powers were a bad thing, because – let’s face it – this is Macy and the show has no faith in the poor girl whatsoever.

And so the episode unfolds, with Macy performing increasingly ill-advised feats to try to put the world right and ‘destiny’ (aka deus ex machina) keeps fighting back and presenting new problems. It’s the sort of tired moral conundrum that we’ve seen play out dozens of times in other formats and just serves to remind once again that for all the pomp and circumstance of reviving the Charmed brand, it’s precisely just the brand that’s in use here, with every major idea being sourced from better material elsewhere.

Leaving aside the massive logic gaps that the show just pretends aren’t there and hopes you will too, there’s nothing satisfying here. Macy as a character has been ill-used from the outset, and that just continues here. In actual fact, the source of her ‘insecurities’ from where I’m standing seems pretty legitimate given the behaviour of the others, and even the resolution feels weak, forced and more like someone had to end the script rather than any kind of natural-feeling conclusion.

Along the way there’s also the personal problems of the other Vera sisters hanging over things (Mel’s ongoing struggle as to what to do about Niko, Maggie pining over Parker because apparently at this point the youngest Vera sister has no other purpose in life) but of course these are small, insignificant snafus which are definitely not their faults whereas everything that happens to and because of Macy is down to her own failings/her demon side/insert other thing which can be placed at Macy’s feet.

It unfolds exactly as you will know it will if you have ever seen anything similar in the genre (and if you watch genre at all you will have) and it consistently manages to leave us with the impression that everything ultimately gets to be Macy’s fault. Even the little attempt at joy and a setup for season 2 can’t distract from what is basically an hour of misery directed at one character.

Verdict: Unoriginal, inconsistent, illogical and messy. Sparks of promise existed at points in this series, but all are absent here. 3/10

Greg D. Smith