NPR

'Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina' Is Wicked, Good

Mad Men's Kiernan Shipka ably carries the Riverdale-adjacent series on Netflix about a young woman who's half mortal, half witch and all hero.
Here Comes Satan Clause: Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka) and Miss Wardwell (Michelle Gomez) literally deal with the devil in Netflix's <em>Chilling Adventures of Sabrina</em>.

"Sweet Sixteen/Dark Baptism."

That's the reminder scrawled into the Oct. 31 box of the wall calendar in the bedroom of Sabrina Spellman.

Yes, "Spellman." She's a witch, and her name ... is "Spellman."

Look, just reconcile yourself to the fact that your tolerance for on-the-nose nomenclature (Sabrina's mentor is called Miss Wardwell, the local ophthalmologist is Doctor Spector, etc.) is gonna get severely tested. That's due in part to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's roots in the sunlit, kid-friendly, primary-color world of Archie Comics. (The Netflix series is technically an adaptation of a decidedly not-for-kids Sabrina comic of the same name launched in 2014 from the publisher's Archie Horror imprint, which was written by series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa with art by Robert Hack.)

Similarly epi-nasal are the -adjacent series' music cues, which: oof. Think of a song with the word "magic" in the lyrics, and odds are good that it — or at least a sound-alike cover of it —

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