Why should ABC make the witches of eastwick disappear?”
One more witch and I’ll scream. Every season, one, two or three networks add to TV’s population of ghouls and ghosts, monsters and vampires. HBO did succeed at bringing in a gusher with its twisted hit “True Blood,” but most attempts are lazy old retreads that never reach the wit level of, say, “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” “Eastwick,” ABC’s attempt at a spooky-smirky sort of satirical soap opera, premieres Wednesday and quickly curdles in its own cute quaintness. We’re back in Stephen King country, except King isn’t really to blame for this mess; it is based on books by John Updike, whose work in this vein already resulted in the movie “Witches of Eastwick” with Jack Nicholson, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Veronica Cartwright, the last also appearing in — and classing up — the ABC romp. It certainly needs classing up, since the dramatis personae tend to wander about a lame, uncertain void in which the funny thrills and the scary thrills bumblingly clunk heads — the script
