Sabrina's Secret Life

"Sabrina's Secret Life" is a good continuation of "Sabrina, the Animated Series". In this series Sabrina is in high school and is dealing with more mature problems. Salem is still hysterical as usual and Aunt Hilda and Zelda are still there helping Sabrina. A new witch rival named Cassandra now attends Sabrina's school.

I haven't seen every episode but from the ones I saw my favorite was "I'm a Slave for Who?". That episode was really funny and was about Harvey, who is cute for a cartoon character. I also like the episode "Midsummer's Nightmare". That is a clever title.

Overall this show is cute and if you're a fan of the other two Sabrina series you should watch this one. I give this show 9/10 stars.

As I said on my Sabrina: Friends Forever! Review, I had a DVD of this show that I watched like it was my life support. Good times, however, nostalgia doesn't always mean good. I almost gave this a 5 star because I was clinging to the past, but I decided I should give this my actual rating.

Where do we begin? Sabrina is kind of mean spirited. Sure, I was kind of rude at 14 too but not to this extent. She was the same in the previous show but she was also 12, 12 year olds are a bit stupider. At 12 I would get mad at my friends because they didn't know how to make their facebook page look good. But the extent to this was unnecessary.

At the top of my head there's episode 11, "Pet Peeve". Sabrina accidentally summons a magic hamster that's actually some warlock guy or something. Salem didn't like him, because he's a villain. Sabrina was so mad at him to the point where she straight up told him to leave! SHE PREFERS A HAMSTER SHE ACCIDENTALLY SPAWNED AND ENDED UP TRYING TO STEAL HER POWER TO SOMEONE SHE KNEW HER WHOLE LIFE!!! She also wouldn't listen when THE ACTUAL AUTHORITIES warned her!!!

Apparently this show is supposed to teach lessons. What am I supposed to learn? Magic hamsters mean trouble and don't kick your family out for them or else you'll take an enchanted sleep? I'm telling you, this show makes no sense. It's not so bad that it makes me say "THIS SHOW KILLED MY DOG AND PEED ON MY YARD" or other ridiculous things that show my hatred. Forgettable at best, awful at worst.

I was taken aback when another reviewer said that Sabrina was a healthy role model. I happened to catch an episode of this series while channel surfing and I was shocked at the animation. The episode was probably the one shown in photo 6 , where Sabrina is wearing a shirt with the red stripe. Oh my, her waist is as thin as a stick! Compared to her head, her head is twice as wide as her waist. At times her head is wider than her shoulders! In the photo her waist is hardly wider than her eyeball! Do you call that a healthy role model?

I've got 60 more characters to go. Okay the adult teacher has gone the other extreme. Her body is so massive that her shrunken head reminds me of the Beetleguise movie with the shrunken heads. One thing this show portrays is not healthy eating.

The original 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' is still a witty, charming and magical show. Its animated prequel show 'Sabrina: The Animated Series' is very much inferior but for a show that gets a lot of dislike to me it wasn't that bad while with room for it to be much better.

Continuing on from 'Sabrina: The Animated Series', this time set a year later with Sabrina now a fully fledged witch leading a secret double life, 'Sabrina's Secret Life' has the higher rating but to me for all its faults the less obscure (even though more hated) 'Sabrina: The Animated Series' was the stronger show. Don't get me wrong, 'Sabrina's Secret Life' is watchable and you can find a million times worse shows, and we are including ones that have lasted much longer and are still going inexplicably, but can kind of understand why it didn't last long (only 27 episodes).

'Sabrina's Secret Life' has good things. The animation is bright and colourful with nicely detailed backgrounds, and the drawing is smoother and somewhat more refined than 'Sabrina: The Animated Series'. The music is dynamic rather than discordant and while not unforgettable it's likable enough.

A few of the characters are well done. Sabrina is a flawed but easy to endear to titular character that serves as a healthy and positive role model for the primary target audience. Cassandra is vastly improved over Gem, the same kind of character with the same snobbishness and arrogance but these are nowhere near as overdone as before and she is not a brat and actually more interesting and antagonistic. The contentious relationship between Sabrina and Cassandra is the best realised of the character relationships, providing some believable conflicts without losing either character's appeal. Maritza is a decent replacement for Chloe.

Really liked the morals, issues and life lessons. Are they original? No. Regardless, they are universal, important relevant and it's hard for anybody not to identify with and they are dealt with in a way that's tactful and fun, not in a way that's unsubtle, sugar-coated or grating. Like 'Sabrina: The Animated Series', 'Sabrina's Secret Life' is a positive show on the whole, really trying to teach good values (which it does well), have stereotypes but mostly positive ones (also achieved with some characters) and not be mean-spirited (successful here).

It is let down once again by the lack of originality and feeling a bit bland. The stories have very little new to them, they have too much of a rehashed feel and are too basic and safe. The writing was in need of more wit and more consistent humour, some effective funny moments were there but there weren't anywhere enough of them.

Primarily because the characters that provide the humour were underwhelming in how they were written. Aunts Hilda and Zelda aren't as funny or as cool, they are a bit bland in personality and don't have enough to do. More disappointing was Salem, he is my favourite 'Sabrina' character and seemed stripped of what made him so good as a character, he doesn't have as much funny and he isn't anywhere near as interesting or as wonderfully sarcastic.

Harvey is not just as wet as a drip here but he also manages to be even more of an idiot than in 'Sabrina: The Animated Series'. Didn't give a toss for the more romantic angles, which were neither cute, romantic or charming, instead being bland and sappy. The voice acting is vastly inferior, the voice actors don't sound as enthusiastic and then there is a little over-compensating in others. Salem was one of the more disappointing examples.

To conclude, could have been much better but not a complete waste. 5/10 Bethany Cox

"Sabrina's Secret Life" serves as a continuation of the beloved animated series "Sabrina: The Animated Series," but it struggles to capture the same magic. While it retains the charm of Sabrina Spellman, voiced by Britt McKillip, and her teenage witch antics, the series often feels like a watered-down version of its predecessor.

The animation is colorful and appealing, though it lacks the polish and depth seen in other animated shows of its time. The storylines are light and geared toward a younger audience, focusing on Sabrina's balance between her life as a high school student and her secret life as a witch in training. However, the plots tend to be formulaic, and the character development isn't as strong as in earlier iterations of the franchise.

For fans of Sabrina, the show offers a nostalgic trip back to her world of magic, but it may not have the same lasting appeal as the original series or other adaptations. It's a decent watch for younger viewers or those looking for something simple and light-hearted.