With Samantha's Seventies, Adam-Michael James takes Bewitched into a new decade

One of the oldest friends of the blog—not in terms of age, I hasten to add—is Adam-Michael James. I've been fortunate to interview Adam-Michael a couple of times in conjunction with two books he's written: The Bewitched Continuum, a fabulous companion to the TV series of the same name; and I, Samantha, Take This Mortal, Darrin, Adam-Michael's imagining of what Bewitched's final episode might have been like if today's custom of providing sendoffs for popular shows had been in effect back in 1972, when the show left the air.

Now, Adam-Michael is back with a third Bewitched book, Samantha's Seventies, in which he takes the show and its beloved characters into the new decade. with some fun results. Naturally, this meant it was time for us to sit down and talk about it, which is something we do very well.

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It's About TV: It seems like it's been ages since we've talked—what have you been up to?

Adam-Michael James: Well, like everybody else, dealing with the current health crisis. I've been lucky in that I live in Prince Edward Island, Canada, which is a fairly small place, and we've only had a handful of COVID cases compared to most of the rest of the world. Although it wasn't intended, writing Samantha's Seventies ended up being my COVID project!

With Samantha's Seventies, you've taken Bewitched into a new decade. Obviously, Sam and Darrin are still together. It's nice to know some things haven't changed!

Can you imagine the hate mail I'd receive if Darrin and Samantha got divorced? [chuckles] Of course they're the show's main constant; any further story of Bewitched could only revolve around them.

Let's set that aside, then. [laughs] So what can we expect from the gang at 1164 Morning Glory Circle?

All the characters you know and love, a ton of Bewitched easter eggs—and I hope a lot of pleasant surprises! You're going to get not only one, but two Aunt Claras, the second being a younger version who gets into a Dynasty style catfight with someone you won't believe. The Stephenses navigate the possibility of another child joining their brood. Tabitha turns into a 25-year-old, which is a throwback to the Tabitha spinoff. We never had mortals and witches coming together for Christmas on the show, so they do here, with just the results you'd figure on and a few twists along the way. And finally, there was never a witch wedding, either, so two characters tie the supernatural knot in a ceremony I think is as poignant and moving as it is mysterious and magical. I really want for Bewitched fans to have as much fun reading this as I did writing it!

Your last book, I, Samantha, Take This Mortal, Darrin—which was a terrific book, by the way—was your imagining of what Bewitched's last episode would have been like if there had been one. What kind of reception you got from Bewitched fans. Did they enjoy the continuation of the story?

Pretty much everything I've heard has been very positive! The most consistent comment I got was that that book read like an episode of Bewitched, that the voices were true to the characters. And that's a compliment that pleases me no end, because I really did try to be as authentic as possible, and I've always maintained writing it was simply like taking dictation from these folks. I have to say the same was true writing Samantha's Seventies. So I hope readers will feel like they've been transported in some "lost episodes" here as well!

And so Samantha's Seventies picks up from there?

iSam, as I call it for short, ended with a great big wide open door—how the mortals in Samantha's life were going to handle the news they all had a witch in their lives. This was kind of the elephant in the room of the series, and it didn't seem like any finale would work without addressing it. But it really was a huge enough cliffhanger, it almost stopped me from going forward with the new book. In fact, I hadn't planned to. But then ideas started popping into my head and they didn't want to let go. It kind of all started with a "wouldn't that be funny?" thought about Tabitha waking up and going "Mother! I had the strangest dream that I worked at a TV station in LA and I drove this yellow car—it was so real!" [chuckles] gain, kind of acknowledging the Tabitha series. But it all circled back to, how are we going to deal with all these mortals knowing Samantha is a witch?

Because that really changes the dynamic of things, doesn't it?

Right. So I ultimately decided to split the book into stories told by year, with the first one specifically showing the ups and downs that Frank, Phyllis, Gladys, Larry, etc. experience adjusting to the magic. I didn't want to just have everybody accept it with no problems, nor did I want anyone to explicitly object and cut Samantha out of their life. So this runs the gamut of the grey areas, and I think folks will be pulled in to those varying levels, which range from absurdist comedy to straight-up drama.

There are a lot of people who, after a TV show wraps up, like to continue the story, to see what happens next. It's something I've done myself. But with Bewitched, your goal seems to be more than just writing new episodes of the sitcom—it's to allow the characters and the story to evolve naturally over time, rather than just remaining the same year after year. Am I right about that? And how does Bewitched lend itself to that kind of evolution?

Yeah, that was the thing: while the conceits of Endora casting spells on Darrin and slogans being dreamed up around whatever witchy predicament the Stephenses happened to be in at the time are part of the glue that held the show together, I think even toward the end of the run that well was getting a little dry. Simply having mortals know about witches was practically a 180-degree turn as it was, and that opened up even further chances for storyline evolution. Darrin already wasn't objecting to witchcraft as vehemently in the final seasons, and here we see him making further progress in that he allows Samantha to lead Tabitha and Adam through once-a-week witchcraft training. There's also evolution in the witch world, with some very important developments that take place during the Bicentennial. I wanted to constantly put our mortals and witches into new situations; the old standbys worked very well for the show, and I wouldn't dare try to do better with them than they did. I just wanted to take the main things we know about "Bewitched" and put fresh spins on them, to have characters interact that didn't get that chance on screen, while doing my best to stay tethered to the core elements that defined the series.

Bewitched went off the air in 1972, so we never really got to see the show inhabit the '70s. How has the world of the Stephens changed?

Well, culturally, technologically, societally—you saw how fast all that came along just during the run of the series. Certainly we came a long way in the '70s as well. That's what dividing the book into seven stories instead of limiting it to one allowed for—the chance to explore each year from 1973 to 1979, fleshing out the world the Stephenses were living in. I grew up in the '70s, so I wanted to make that world feel as real as possible. A lot of details were from memory, but I also did a good amount of research, which gave me an even wider palette from which to paint. You see the progression in Samantha's hairstyles, in the wardrobe. It extends to her world at large, as the energy crisis looms, and the music! Disco plays a prominent role, and given the climate we're in now, I went out of my way to choose songs almost exclusively by Black artists. It's not unlike watching the full run of the show, from black-and-white to the yellows and oranges of the hippie days where the show ended. I wanted the readers to experience the '70s metamorphosis right along with Samantha and Darrin.

Even though Bewitched was a fantasy-comedy, the show wasn't hesitant about tackling real-world social issues, kind of the same as Rod Serling did with Twilight Zone. What was it about Bewitched that enabled it to do this successfully, while it was also able to stay funny at the same time? Do you know what I mean? 

I most absolutely do. I think a big part of that was the fact that these characters exist in a magical world—which makes some of those real-world issues easier to digest. Because of what the show was, even when they came up against prejudice and racism, it was always going to be dealt with in the context of some kind of witchy situation. That's why I think it worked, plus they were never really preachy or heavy-handed about it. I know that infusing messages about equality and unity was very important to Elizabeth Montgomery, and that's one of the biggest reasons I've tried to continue that tradition in my Bewitched imaginings. 

And that's something you do very well, in both books.

The author, channeling the Seventies  

Thank you. My goal was to take things one step further on that score, and society's progression in the '70s created the perfect backdrop for it. There's a neat little arc where Tabitha and Adam deal with the repercussions of     being both half-witch and half-mortal, and that leads to a revelation that reaffirms we really are more alike than we are different, no matter how stark those differences might be. We truly need reminders of that today - maybe even more than when Bewitched was in first run—and I am more than happy to take up the torch that Elizabeth Montgomery lit. I hope she'd be happy I did.

As we've seen recently in WandaVision, there's something timeless about the sitcom, something that allows the format to continue from decade to decade while remaining relatively intact. Is that kind of consistency what enables you to continue the story of Bewitched beyond the timeframe of the series itself?

I have to sheepishly admit that I haven't yet seen WandaVision, though I've heard many great things about it. I agree that there's something timeless about Bewitched, not only because we're dealing with witches, but because the show is filled with beloved, memorable characters who seem to transcend the era they're limited to on-screen. For me, continuing their story feels very natural; it's been as if freeing them from the confines of television has opened the door to worlds of new possibilities for them.

How do you view the legacy that Bewitched leaves? We've had other shows dealing with the supernatural since then. How did Bewitched influence them?

Well, Bewitched does have the honor of being the first supernatural sitcom. So I would say that any magical show since—comedy or drama—has its roots in Bewitched. So that's hard not to be influenced by. Bewitched had the fun, but our witches also had their rituals and in later seasons they got into the mechanics of that world's witchcraft. Those are some very cool elements to be inspired by.

Is there a show out there that you'd consider its"successor"?

Honestly, I'd have to say no. As wonderful as other shows may be, as fascinating as their worlds might be, Bewitched was its own entity. The only thing I could ever see as a successor would be a proper continuation, but I think we're 20 or 30 years too late for that now. I guess that's why I came up with one on the page, even if it's not canonical and just my own imagining of how it might be.

Can we look forward to a continuation of the saga, maybe into the '80s?

Funny, I get a lot of people asking me that. [laughs] My first instinct is to say no, but that's probably because it hasn't been that long since I finished this latest saga. I didn't ultimately set out to write this book, either - except Samantha and everybody decided they had more that they wanted to say. Now how can you refuse a request like that? So you never know what they might still have to get off their chests.

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One of the things I love about running It's About TV! over the years is that it's allowed me to meet so many people I never would have run into otherwise, people I'm fortunate to call friends. Adam-Michael James is one of them, and it's always a pleasure when we get a chancd to talk about the Bewitched universe. I hope you'll make Samantha's Seventies part of your television library.

Adam-Michael is also someone who understands that classic television shows don't have to be stuck in the past. Whether bringing the stories into the modern era or simply realizing that these vintage shows have something to tell us, it's proof that the world of classic television is far from being a dead one. TV  

The "It's About TV" Interview: Adam-Michael James, author of I, Samantha, Take This Mortal, Darrin

 I t's been over a year since we last talked with our old friend Adam-Michael James, author of The Bewitched Continuum, one of my favorite books of 2015 (and I don’t mean just the books I reviewed, either), so when I got the news that Adam-Michael had a new Bewitched project in the works, it presented a perfect opportunity to catch up.

Adam-Michael's new novel, I, Samantha, Take This Mortal, Darrin - which hit Amazon this week! - brings a sense of closure to the Bewitched universe. Like most series of its time, Bewitched made no attempt to bring the series to any kind of conclusion when it ended its eight-season run in 1972. "Final episodes" of popular television shows were a rarity back then (the most famous one to that time was the end of The Fugitive, but there had been a few others). It wasn't as if the characters were left in any kind of limbo; neither, however, was there any opportunity for them to say a proper goodbye to a loyal viewing audience that had grown to know and love Samantha and Darrin Stephens and the various characters that orbited around their world.

With I, Samantha, Take This Mortal, Darrin, Adam-Michael sets out to provide a fitting end to one of the most popular sitcoms of the '60s and early '70s. And I can't think of anyone better qualified to do it - so why don't I shut up and let him tell you about it himself?

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It's About TV: It has been a while since we last talked about Bewitched - so what have you been up to since then? 

Adam-Michael James: Mostly promoting The Bewitched Continuum. [laughs] No, there have been other things, too – I’ve done some acting in theatre and some local video projects. Ended a 15-year relationship, moved back to L.A. but changed my mind and returned to Canada three months later...never a dull moment!

Bewitched, as we've said, came from a time when most TV series did not have "final episodes" that wrapped everything up, so tell me how the idea for the new book came about. What was it about the series that begged to you for such an episode - to clear up "final business," so to speak? 

It was already something I’d thought of for The Bewitched Continuum, and that’s where the initial synopsis of this two-part “episode” is. I don’t know what viewers felt about it in 1972, but when you watch the show in order now, it just feels incomplete by the time you get to Episode #254, especially since it’s not only a regular episode, but one of the more blatant remakes with dialogue copied word for word. And, as you say, it’s not like the series finale concept was commonplace back then, so even if the cast and crew of Bewitched knew they were going off the air (and I don’t think they did), they wouldn’t necessarily have wrapped things up. I was already analyzing eight seasons for The Bewitched Continuum, so I thought, “Why don’t I come up with a series finale myself?”

Where did the idea for the story come from? 

Well, as you know, Bewitched is not just about a cute little witch whose family causes problems for her mortal husband every week. It’s about prejudice – and overcoming it. The show itself constantly layered messages of equality and acceptance into its scripts, sometimes subtly, sometimes directly. And because this was in the middle of the civil rights movement, it was quite a bold thing to do. So it was only natural to think a final episode of Bewitched would double down on those messages, and do what any series finale would do: bring the show full circle, answer long-standing questions, and raise the stakes higher than they’d been in anything that came before it. Of course, in The Bewitched Continuum that was just two paragraphs; I had so much fun fleshing them out and finding ways to tie in key moments and have characters interact who had never shared a scene. I even ended up channeling backstories for Samantha and Darrin!

As an author myself, I'm always interested in how other writers approach the writing process - how long did it take you to flesh out the plot, and how long did it take to write?

I had the idea for Darrin’s backstory around this time last year – and then as things came to me I would make copious notes. Sometimes something would occur to me as I was trying to get to sleep and I’d have to get up and write something down or at least reach for the phone and record it. But the actual writing only took about four months – and that was including the three weeks I had to take off to go down to Florida and get my mother out of the path of Hurricane Irma. Fortunately her home survived and everything was fine, but it certainly shut down my creative engine for a while!

Tell us a little about the premise. What adventures do we find the Stephens engaged in this time?

Again, I wanted to bring things full circle. So how it starts off is, Darrin finally gets his promotion and becomes a partner at McMann, Tate, and Stephens, which is something that came up more than once over the course of the show. Samantha throws him a hip party filled with funk music – I referenced several songs, many of which I’d discovered for the first time and listened to on auto-repeat as I was writing. And long-missing mortals are in attendance. Most had only ever appeared in one episode, but I created a comprehensive list of endnotes so readers could tell what episode what character came from, or from what part of “The Bewitched Continuum” I built a story point around. Not to mention, I wanted to make it clear what was my idea and what was a creation of the show.

Anyway, all is going well until some witchcraft happens in front of this room full of mortals, and Samantha is unable to explain it away the way she was able to when it was one or two people witnessing magic. So she tells her guests she’s a witch – and before they can react, the Witches’ Council steps in, and Samantha has to fight for her way of life via a hearing that involves many witches and mortals. My other rule was, no new characters. Everyone who shows up was on screen at one point or another. It’s quite the reunion!

You suggest that there's a message in Bewitched that's applicable to today's world, aside from the sheer fantasy and sitcom humor of the show. Can you elaborate on that? 

With pleasure. As I mentioned, Bewitched was all about equality and acceptance. Elizabeth Montgomery really believed in that. At one point Samantha said “all men are brothers, even if they’re girls.” Another time she called for the “acceptance of all differences, and a recognition of our common humanity.” That was very necessary during the ‘60s and ‘70s – regrettably, here in 2017 there’s a movement to drag society backwards into intolerance, prejudice, and the idea that one group of people is superior to another. If Bewitched were on the air today first-run, I’m willing to bet Samantha would be taking the same kind of stand she did 45 years ago, if not a stronger one. I feel I have a responsibility as an artist to take the messages of Bewitched and amplify them, because we really, really need to hear them right now. It’s all done subtly, but I think it’s what Elizabeth would have done and I hope she would be proud of it.

Do you think there are other shows out there that, like Bewitched, have this serious side, and a
kind of moral foundation that supports the show even if it remains mostly unsaid?

If you mean classic TV shows, it’s hard for me to say. I only know Bewitched and a handful of others this intimately. I’m sure issues of social justice were tackled in dramas of that day, but I’m hard pressed to think of another comedy that did. I think shows of all genres of television are much more apt to advocate for equality now. Because for as much as there are those lately who want to undo the progress of the past several decades, that progress is still there. It’s nice to think that Bewitched was at least in the forefront of taking a stand in the context of its magic and comedy.

In creating the backstories and writing the main story, did you find the characters saying or doing anything that surprised you, or situations occurring that you hadn't really expected?

Oh, all the time. Initially I’d just planned to follow the series finale synopsis I had laid out in The Bewitched Continuum. But as I went along it seemed these folks had more they wanted to say. Of course, the base for all of it was the show itself. For example, it was said in the pilot that Darrin was from Missouri, so I built on that; I figured he must have already been into advertising as a kid. With Samantha, of course, I had freer rein because she’s a witch, plus it had finally been confirmed in Season 7 that she was 300 years old. But a lot of stuff just came organically. Bits of humor revealing themselves in unorthodox places, dramatic parallels happening in others. Do you remember that
episode where Samantha was writing a play about the Civil War and she zapped up characters that ended up telling her what to write?

Yes! [laughs]

Doing this book was not unlike that! [laughs]

One of the things I like about the book is how you mix comedy with drama, how you've created scenarios that create some very real danger for the Stephens family - after all, this is a last episode, anything can happen - and yet you maintain the natural humor of the characters that viewers will recognize. Difficult?

The show itself was already very adept at sprinkling drama into things – there were many moments, especially in the early seasons, that made you forget you were watching a sitcom. So I guess once I caught onto that wavelength, it wasn’t too difficult. I did worry a bit when I got to the showdown with the Witches’ Council that things might get overly serious, but sometimes you can find humor in the craziest situations, and that often helps you get through. A maxim I seem to have adhered by most of my own life!

So here's a scenario for you: the book has been optioned as a movie - tell me about your ideal cast, if there is one. 

Man, I hate to turn down that check. [laughs] It just couldn’t be done. The way I crafted this, it “airs” a week after the final episode that audiences actually saw. That means the cast as it existed in 1972 are the stars here. Relegating it to fictional status even more is the brief appearance of a character whose portrayer passed away during the run of the show, which would have already been impossible back then because the actor could simply not have been recast. So I, Samantha... (or as I’ve started to call it, “iSam” [laughs]) can only exist in our minds, unfortunately!

Any more stories in the works, or does this bring the Bewitched story to a conclusion?

Certainly the intention with this book is to bring the series as we knew it to a close. But let’s just say, if there was enough interest in it, following Samantha, Darrin, and the kids into the ‘80s, ‘90s, and even the 2000s wouldn’t require much arm-twisting.

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Ah, that was fun! My thanks as always to Adam-Michael for graciously answering my questions. You can find out more about Adam-Michael and his other work at his website, www. adammichaeljames.com  I, Samantha, Take This Mortal, Darrin, is available from Amazon, and I'll be back on Friday with a review. See you then, right? Right!  TV 

Around the dial - Wednesday edition!

Because I'll be out-of-pocket from live blogging for the rest of this week, I thought I'd put up a special "Around the Dial" for today, followed on Friday by a terrific interview I had recently with Adam-Michael James, author of The Bewitched Continuum.  Please make sure and come back for that interview; not only is The Bewitched Continuum a wonderful book (review coming shortly), but Adam-Michael is a terrific and charming interview.  In the meantime...

We've read about this before, but The University of Maryland Broadcasting Archives links to another story, this one from Adweek, on how classic television subchannels are proving to be good business.

I've also mentioned Fireball XL-5 before - perhaps my favorite show that I have no memory of.  I had the toys, was told I loved the show as a little kid, can't remember a thing.  Classic Film and TV Cafe says we can now relive it (or live it for the first time) with a great new DVD boxed set.

Remember the days before television became so serialized, before we had catchphrases such as "story arc"?  Back then, most series had what were called "two-part episodes," meaning the story would be told over two weeks, rather than one.  How quaint!  Anyway, Comfort TV takes us back to those days, with some of the best and worst examples of the genre.

Skipper!  It was Alan Hale Jr.'s most memorable role, and Michael's TV Tray commemorates what would have been his 94th birthday with one of the great Gilligan's Island bits.  I've been seeing Hale a lot lately on MST3K; better to remember him this way!

Don't forget to check out the new TV Guide review on Friday at Television Obscurities.  In the meantime, here's a story about the Festival of Preservation at UCLA, which serves as yet another reminder that I need to get out there and check out the television section of that museum.

More good stuff out there, so be sure to check the sidebar for all the other blogs that make up the honor roll.  And remember - back here on Friday for my interview with Adam-Michael James! TV