Reviewing Season One of "Coven Academy"

I remember when the news broke about Coven Academy months ago; I was very excited to hear about this. I was all in quickly, and I had my reasons, especially a main one, but more on that later. Within the first few minutes that I watched this, I noticed that Coven Academy was basically Pretty Little Liars meets Charmed (either version works). I expected a lot in this show, but what I didn't expect was vampires... especially within the first two minutes of the series! But yeah, witches, warlocks, vampires, and yes, werewolves in this thing. But let's get to the plot (Warning: there are spoilers).

New Orleans is the setting, and the central character is Briar Roberts, from straight out of Brooklyn, attending Coven Academy due to her telekinetic abilities. The Charmed element comes in when Briar forms friendships with fellow students Sasha Baptiste and Tegan Kimball, and as is the case with a lot of drama lately, the central character has their own mystery. In the case of Briar, her mother, Mary Roberts (a witch in her own right), was murdered a year prior to the events.

Regarding the vampires, well, they've had a bit of a rivalry with witches and warlocks for God knows how long. One vampire who seems to have caught Briar's eye is Ollie, who isn't really fond of his status as a vampire. But not so fast, Briar has another interest in the form of young warlock Jake Dawson, because you know the rules: all YA supernatural dramas have to have a baffling love triangle, though at least this one isn't as baffling as others on TV and film.

The cast's forefront consists of young up-and-comers, centered by Malina Weissman as Briar Roberts. Jordan Leftwich portrays Sasha Baptiste, whose empath traits reminded me a bit of Joy Sunday's Bianca Barclay (a siren) on Wednesday, and Ora Duplass portrays Tegan Kimball. Now, while Leftwich and Duplass are relative newcomers, we Arrowverse fans are familiar with Weissman; she appeared on Supergirl as a young Kara Zor-El. Louis Thresher (as Ollie) is also a relative newcomer, but Malachi Barton (as Jake) isn't. Barton's done a lot for Disney, including the short-lived series, The Villains of Valley View, as well as the fourth Z-O-M-B-I-E-S film, and he'll be in the upcoming fifth one.

The show does have its established cast members, and one of them is Devon Sawa, who appears as Peter Cole, a warlock who teaches at the academy. To say that Sawa's done a hell of a lot is an understatement. Little Giants was Sawa's first film, one of my favorite sports comedies from my childhood. He's gone on to appear in Casper and the first Final Destination film, and he's even done some Lifetime films. Recently, Sawa was in the horror film, Heart Eyes, but he's gained some recent fame on the Chucky TV series, playing five characters--all of them killed by Chucky.

I said I had my reasons for looking forward to this show, and this is my main one:

This woman needs no introduction, but she will truly get a great one. If you enjoyed NBC's Saturday morning lineup in the 90s, you know her. If you enjoyed and loved gorgeous troublemakers on primetime, you definitely know her. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, though she dropped the Amber recently. Kelly Kapowski from Saved by the Bell, Valerie Malone from the original 90210, Billie Chambers from Fastlane, and Lori Mendoza from Alexa and Katie. In this series, Thiessen plays the headmistress, Emma Graves, and of course, I had one hope for this series: for Miss Graves to be the main villainess. Spoiler alert: she isn't. But here's the thing: I'm not disappointed, and I mean that. I love the show way too much to be upset that we don't get an evil Tiffani Thiessen in this. Plus so many things make up for this.

Here's one of them:

We did receive a recurring villainess in the form of Tamora Tomlinson, played wonderfully and deliciously by Keegan Connor Tracy. She first appeared in the end of the second episode, "Blood, Sweat, and Fears," and revealed herself as a vampiress and flashed her fangs at Briar. The progression revealed that Tamora and Emma were once part of a coven together with Mary, and the wrestling fan in me couldn't help but compare this situation to Extreme Exposé. You remember that trio: Kelly Kelly, Layla El, and Brooke Adams. They acted as a dance trio throughout almost all of 2007, but by November of that year, Brooke was released, Layla turned heel, and Kelly continued to be a popular babyface.

Same thing applied to the older coven. Mary left the coven after she was pregnant with Briar (the Brooke route), Emma remained in Big Damn Good territory as headmistress (the Kelly route), and finally, Tamora turned heel and intentionally became an evil vampire-witch hybrid (the Layla route). Tamora claimed to Emma that her actions were done to protect herself and others from the incoming darkness, but it was clear that Tamora loved her evil power way too much. I mentioned Ollie. He's Tamora's nephew, and it was Tamora herself who sired Ollie and forced him to do her bidding. After seeing her heel persona played out so deliciously, Tamora was knocked off in the end of Episode 5, "Power Trip," but I truly enjoyed seeing Tracy play this deliciously wicked role so much!

So who was Season One's true big bad?

I knew good and damn well Emma wouldn't be the big bad; I had a better chance of NFL refs actually being fair to the Packers for once. I had Peter Cole pegged, but shockingly, it wasn't him. The true villain of Season One was none other than William Bixton, played masterfully by Tahmoh Penikett. As it turned out, back in 1998, at the Winter Solstice Festival, William decided that he wanted to cast a spell that would arm every witch and warlock with dark magic, claiming that it would be easier for them to destroy demonic forces. His attempt to get Mary involved failed miserably, as she, Emma, and Tamora took away William's magic. He was charged up when he was summoned by his son--Jake, who was fully unaware of his father's evil nature.

Now fully powered again, William shifted into Emma's form and killed Mary, doing so to set up Emma. After that, he took Peter's form and manipulated Jake, while also killing Tamora as well. William looked to use Briar to enact his scheme, but the young coven and Emma took him down.

As for telecasts, it gets interesting. The series premiered on Freeform on October 1, 2026, with four bunched-up episodes. The following day, October 2, 2026, the entire first season was released on Disney+, and it was 21 episodes released in a short-form format, with the episodes lasting from as little as 10 minutes to as many as 22 minutes. Freeform aired the rest of the season on October 8 and 15, 2026. I found that interesting; I had only seen one show that had episodes like that, and it was Kevin Hart's series, Die Hart. I think I know why it was done like that. We live in the age of shorts; short films that are episodic. We viewers aren't exactly patient nowadays. A show like this definitely would have normally aired under a one-hour format, which meant 42-46 minutes per episode (without ads). This format is definitely time saving, and we still get quite a bit per episode.

And it's working, because Coven Academy is getting a second season! And thank goodness, because a lot is left open-ended. First off, Mason--Sasha's brother. He was believed to have been killed by the vampires. Turns out not only is Mason one himself, he's enjoying it. However, we see Sasha in the early stages of a plan to regain his humanity. Also, Tegan and McKenna (the latter being the alpha, ahem, witch) are a thing, but McKenna reveals that a vampire bit her, and she could become a hybrid, and we know how fiendish those hybrids are. And then there's the big one. As it turns out, Emma is actually Briar's birth mother, and she summoned Mary's spirit to voice her fear that Briar's figured it out. Emma had her reasons for giving her up, but we'll have to wait on that, as something possibly more wicked this way comes.

I absolutely enjoyed Coven Academy, and I am so happy that a second season is happening! I sense a bigger and wilder season next October, and yes, I think it'll be an October 2027 premiere for Season Two!

Feel free to check out Tamora Tomlinson's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!