TGIF, Sabrina fans! In a video posted to Twitter on Friday, December 11th, 2020, Netflix revealed that Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea would be appearing in the final season of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina as Zelda Spellman and Hilda Spellman, roles they originated in the sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which ran from 1996 through 2003 on ABC.
Be still my teenage heart!
Look who shows up in the new season of @sabrinanetflix pic.twitter.com/BBdsJF5R3O
— Netflix (@netflix) December 11, 2020
Sabrina the Teenage Witch starred Melissa Joan Hart in the eponymous role, and the series was so popular it spawned several TV movies and helped cement ABC’s 90s TGIF lineup, a block of sitcoms that included such classic as Boy Meets World and Family Matters.
While Sabrina the Teenage Witch was a lighthearted sitcom complete with a laugh track, the more recent Netflix adaptation of the Archie Comics spellcaster (from postmodern Archie wizard Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa) takes a decidedly more spooky tone (much like the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comic, from Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack, with lettering by Jack Morelli).
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comic was itself an adaptation of the Archie Comics character of Sabrina, who first appeared in the panels of Archie’s Madhouse #22 in October 1962 in a comic by George Gladir, Dan DeCarlo, Rudy Lapick, and Vince DeCarlo. Soon, she had been spun-off into her own series of comics, and has since become one of the most popular characters in Archie Comics.
The Netflix adaptation of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina premiered in October 2018, and the roles of Zelda Spellman and Hilda Spellman have been played by Miranda Otto and Lucy Davis, respectively, while the role of Sabrina is played by Kiernan Shipka. In the scene released by Netflix, it seems as though Sabrina has landed herself in a situation where her life has somehow become the set of a sitcom, with Richard Coyle’s Father Blackwood playing the role of the on-set director.
Whatever it is that’s happening, we’re interested! Part four of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina – the final chapter of the series – will be available for streaming on Netflix on December 31st, 2020… and in the meantime, you can catch up on parts one through three if you haven’t already!
