ALL SERIES TV

The challenges come fast and furious for the Halliwell sisters in Charmed: The Complete Seventh Season. Some of them are pretty exotic, too: a visit from Lady Godiva, who inspires a certain, unexpected freedom in witchy sisters Phoebe (Alyssa Milano), Piper (Holly Marie Combs), and Paige (Rose McGowan) while dodging the evil designs of a nasty land baron. Shakti and Shiva, the ultimate lovers of Hinduism, manage to occupy the bodies of Piper and still-evolving Whitelighter Leo (Brian Krause) at a very bad time: The consummation of their love will destroy the universe. An ex-demon turned professor at the Magic School falls under a spell that causes him to believe he's Robin Hood and that Phoebe is Maid Marian. And it goes on like that: an invisible demon posing as an imaginary friend to a child; a time-travel trip to 1899 (and the site of a tragic fire) that strands Phoebe; the arrival of Pandora's Box in the hands of a shape-shifting visitor from the Underworld. Things never quiet down for the Halliwells, and their lives are even more complicated by Zankou (Oded Fehr), who shows up in a running storyline about his effort to release the Shadow, the ultimate power, and steal the Book of Shadows, which is crucial to the sisters' witchcraft. Meanwhile, Leo must make a crucial choice in order to release Piper and Phoebe from their deaths at the hands of yet another demon: Should he save them or engage in magic that will ultimately rob him of his free will? An exciting season full of new changes and characters, transitions, children, and much else, Charmed: The Complete Seventh Season carries on this long-running television show's breathless pace and intriguing mix of the arcane and ordinary. --Tom Keogh