Virginia Madsen in Witches of East End

Witches of East End is a TV show that ran from 2013 to 2014 and lasted two Seasons on the Lifetime Channel. It was cancelled after its second Season showed a decline in ratings. It’s loosely based on the book of the same name by Melissa De La Cruz.

It’s another that sadly wasn’t for me. I watched the first two episodes and I could see the road where we were travelling. Shows like this are hit and miss for me personally, I like Supernatural for example, but shows like Witches of East End are too glossy(?) for me. I think I’m probably too old for the audience it was aiming for.

The show follows the trials and tribulations of the Buchamp family, who have tucked themselves away in a small town known as East End. Joanna Beauchamp (Julia Ormond) is the mother of two children, Freya (Jenna Dewan) and Ingrid (Rachel Boston). Unknown to the two children, they have a secret: they are born Witches.

Joanna is trying to keep them from finding out the truth, BUT – Well, obviously that never works out well in these kinds of shows and they inevitably start to work things out. Especially when Joanna’s sister, Wendy (Madchen Amick) pops up aiming to cause trouble and insistent the pair know their heritage.
Virginia plays Penelope Gardiner, the main antagonist of Season 1 of the show. She’s the atypical villain of one of these kinds of shows, she can be sweet, loving and Mothering but she’s got an evil streak a mile wide. It’s not long into the show before we see this. When we learn she stole her own kid’s power to make herself even powerful it’s no surprise.

She plays her part well enough, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen her do before in one form or another. Obviously always a delight to have her on screen, hamming it up or not, but we aren’t going back to awards country for this one.Hard for me to give a personal recommendation fo this one. It seemed to be done well enough for this kind of show, but as I said. Not for me ultimately. It did have a good following while it was on air though and the fans of the show tried to do the campaign / petition thing to keep it on air, but that didn’t work.