Starring: Julia Ormond, Jenna Dewan-Tatum, Rachel Boston, Madchen Amick, Eric Winter, Daniel DiTomasso, Virginia Madsen, Jason George, Tom Lenk.

In preparation for this show returning on July 6th, I figured I could dabble in some witchcraft. I meant to watch the show the first go around, since the cast is actually really good for a Lifetime series, and I missed it. Luckily, through the advent of streaming (and my cable provider hosting the entire first season), we can now catch up on shows we’ve missed. Which is a good thing, because I kind of dug this show.

I watched the two episodes back-to-back, mainly because the 1st episode ends on such a cliffhanger that it doesn’t even feel like the pilot has resolved. It feels like a two-parter, and I gave it its due. Honestly, it’s an obvious guilty pleasure. It’s not the smartest show in the world, sometimes guilty of spoon feeding you information. Then again, it’s a pilot… and often times pilots provide a lot of heavy exposition in dialogue, and once the series is established, they can move away from that. But… the exposition in the first two episodes is thick as molasses. You’d think Tolkien wrote it. I mean,  come on. You’re a show about witches airing on Lifetime. We just do not need that much backstory. The women of Lifetime have sat through so many bad tv movies, they can pretty much pick up on subtext at this point.

The good news is that I loved Jenna Dewan-Tatum in this, after hating her in The Playboy Club. Also, Rachel Boston is great. Madchen Amick is great. Julia Ormond? If you can’t ditch the accent 100%, stop trying to ditch it alt all. It’s distracting to hear her accent fade in and out. She’s been alive for hundreds of years, but still can’t grasp an American accent? Virginia Madsen is horribly underutilized, and Jason George needs to get back to Grey’s Anatomy… STAT!

There’s promise in this show to be a guilty pleasure. I had no problem watching the second episode. I didn’t force myself, or play on my phone while the episode was progressing. It was infinitely more interesting than the last pilot I watched (Halt and Catch Fire). I actually plan on trying to finish Season 1 of Witches Of East End. It’s a fun show. Not a smart show. Definitely not a smart show. We will not be arguing about Emmy nominations coming out of this show.

It reminds me of Eastwick, but they seem to have fixed everything that was wrong with Eastwick in the first place. Infinitely more interesting right from the start. The cast has a better dynamic. And as far as current competing witch drama Salem goes… it’s way better than Salem. Definitely check this out if you like silly soapy witch dramedies.

FINAL GRADE: B+