Dream

From quirky families and undercover agents, to even talking farm animals, everything was fair game, yet two attempts at blending the supernatural with the ...

In the mortal realm, the series benefits from Darren himself, who becomes incensed at the sight of anything with connotations of wands and wizardry, his boss, Larry Tate (David White) who would heighten his status with some magical shortcuts, and the quintessential yenta, Mrs Pearce (Gladys Kravtiz) who knows there’s something untoward going on in the neighbour's house and spends her days peering through the curtains to prove it. Bellows (Hayden Rorke) and his wife, the OG Karen, Amanda (Emaline Henry), are always sniffing around, resulting in a lot of wide-eyed expressions and convoluted exuses. Of course there are those who suspect something is amiss in Casa Nelson, particularly with his constant and dotty companion, thus the act of dodging their prying eyes takes up most of the airtime. I Dream of Jeannie doesn’t have the same allegorical social-ladder struggles as Bewitched, because most of the conflict is borne from Jeannie trying to meddle (often for better, occasionally as a “lesson”), and ultimately seeking only to please Nelson. This is a goal shared, although never achieved thanks to the constant interference from family as well as the occasional threat of a real-world attempt at exploitation. With concepts as interchangeable as the storylines, replete with copy-and-paste characters in both central and minor roles these two stalwarts of the decade had more in common than most.