Charmed
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Dead Man Dating is the 4th episode of the first season and the 4th overall episode of Charmed.

Summary[]

For a complete plot of Dead Man Dating, go here.
To read the full script of Dead Man Dating, go here.

Prue tries to avoid a birthday celebration as Piper befriends and saves the restless soul of a ghost who was murdered by a gang leader. The sisters save his soul and learn a valuable lesson.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Stars[]

Co-Stars[]

Uncredited[]

Magical Notes[]

Powers[]

  • Molecular ImmobilizationUsed by Piper to freeze Yama, Tony Wong's gang, and a bullet fired at Prue.
  • PremonitionUsed by Phoebe to read people's fortunes at the Hotel Neptune, and to find the warehouse where Tony Wong was hiding.
  • TelekinesisUsed by Prue to move a food trolley, throw one of Tony Wong's men into a pile of boxes, open a door, and throw Tony Wong down the stairs.
  • Sensing: Used by Yama to track unburied spirits.
  • Intangibility: As a ghost, Mark Chao was intangible.
  • Soul Absorption: Used by Yama to take Tony Wong's soul.
  • Smoke-FadingType of teleportation used by Yama.

Notes and Trivia[]

  • Darryl does not appear in this episode.
  • This episode is the sixth episode produced, even though it was the fourth episode to air.
  • This is the first time the Charmed Ones meet a ghost.
  • This is also the only time that Piper is able to freeze a ghost or ghost-like entity.
  • This episode marks the first time that the main foe whom the sisters are facing (Tony Wong) is entirely non-magical.
  • There are a few days of interval between Mark Chao and Prue's birthday. Mark Chao's birthday is celebrated at the beginning while Prue's birthday is celebrated at the end of this episode.
  • Piper's license plate number is 3B583Y8.
    DMD 01

    Holly, Shannen and Alyssa on set of Dead Man Dating.

  • Phoebe's saving Mr. Correy is an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although not technically self-fulfilling, it has the same circular pattern: Phoebe has a premonition of Correy being run over by a car, and it is because of her pestering attempts to warn him that he winds up in the middle of the road.
  • This is the first time that Phoebe's vision is unseen. She merely explains what she sees.
  • Like many ghosts in a variety of fiction, Mark only passes through convenient objects (bikers, doors, TV sets, but not floors, car seats, etc.). It should be noted in the creators' defense though, that it would be very hard to compose scenes with ghosts that pass through everything.
  • This is the first time the Charmed Ones witness a mortal being killed.
  • When Piper says she' had never seen anyone (human) being killed before, Phoebe mentions Jeremy, and Prue mentions Javna, although it was previously said that the spell they used on Javna was once used to banish him back to the Underworld. This, along with Javna disintegrating to dust, further suggests that Javna was vanquished, and like many other demons that followed, it takes the Power of Three to do so.
  • Although Phoebe foresaw Mr. Correy being hit by a Cadillac in black and white, she probably saw it in color as she knew that it was a pink Cadillac.
  • This episode scored 6.4 million viewers.
  • This is the first time that John Cho and Elizabeth Sung will play Mother and Son. They'll play the same roles again in an episode of House, entitled "Love Hurts" which is also the title of a Charmed episode.
  • In "Secrets and Guys", Prue revealed Phoebe told her about the surprise party.
  • John Cho portrays a Chinese character in this episode, but he is Korean in his real life.
  • This is the first episode in which a character celebrates his birthday. Piper will celebrate hers in "Prince Charmed", Cole in "Centennial Charmed", and Wyatt in "The Courtship of Wyatt's Father" and "Payback's a Witch". Chris was also supposed to celebrate his birthday in "Death Becomes Them", however, the celebration was canceled due to demonic problems.
  • In the scene where Prue is in a towel coming out of the bathroom, the bathroom is shown to be where the closet will be in future episodes. This may be because the series was just starting and the whole room arrangement of the manor had not been figured out yet.
  • This is the first episode where a spell is not cast.
  • This is the first episode where the Power of Three is not used.
  • When asked about Holly Marie Combs's experience with the scene where she spoke Chinese, she answered the experience was hard. She had taken one week of practice and had to frequently redo the scene during shooting.[1]

Cultural References[]

  • The title of the episode is a reference to "Dead Man Walking", the 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.
  • The scene where Mark seeks out a psychic to help him is similar to the storyline of the movie, Ghost, in which the main character seeks help from a psychic, to make contact with his girlfriend.
  • The Camus novel Piper reads from at Mark's apartment is The Plague.

Continuity Errors[]

  • When Andy's ex introduced herself as Susan Trudeau, Prue asked if she was Andy's sister. Since Prue and Andy grew up together, she should have known she wasn't.
  • When Piper and Mark escape Yama the first time, Piper is seen slightly touching Mark as they began their run.
  • When Mark gets into Piper's vehicle at the police station, you can clearly see the vehicle move, despite the fact that Mark is a ghost and therefore his weight wouldn't affect the vehicle.
  • When Phoebe writes the Chinese characters from her vision onto her left hand, and the first time you see her hand, the writing is there. When Phoebe raises her hand, the writing is not there. Then, you see her hand again and the writing has returned.
  • In Chinese culture, it is customary for close relatives to wear white. However, Mrs. Chao is show to be wearing black and gray which are customarily worn by more distant relatives.

Music[]

  • Secret Smile by Semisonic (After opening credits)
  • Hush, Hush, Hush by Paula Cole (When Piper and Mark are in his apartment and when they "kiss")
  • Sand and Water by Beth Nielsen Chapman (During Mark's funeral)

Gallery[]

Episode Stills[]

Quotes[]

Prue: Andy, hi.
Andy: I was no where near the neighborhood, thought I'd stop by.
Prue: Honest man, I like that.

(Yama appears in the distance. He's on a horse which is galloping straight toward them.)
Mark: Yama!
Piper: Yama? Run.
Mark: It's too late. You better go. Run! (Piper freezes Yama.) What happened?
Piper: I'm a good witch, remember?
Mark: But how?
Piper: I don't know. I panic, I put up both hands and bad things tend to freeze.
Mark: For how long?
Piper: Not very, let's go.
(They run down the alley and Yama unfreezes. Yama's eyes glow bright green.)

(Outside the police station. Piper walks out of the station and over to Mark, who is standing beside her car.)
Piper: Okay, all set. I snuck the photograph into Andy's inter office mail.
Mark: My afterlife's in the hands of a cop named Andy.

(Tony fires his gun and Andy shoots him. Prue, Piper, Phoebe and Mark walk out onto the balcony.)
Piper: I've never seen anybody killed before.
Prue: Jeremy.
Phoebe: Javna.
Piper: I mean human.

Piper: (crying) Leave it to me to fall for a dead guy.
Phoebe: It's an improvement. At least he wasn't a warlock.
Piper: Yeah.

International Titles[]

  • French: Histoire de fantôme chinois (A Chinese Ghost Story)
  • Czech: Rande s duchem (Date With the Ghost)
  • Slovak: Rande s mŕtvym (Date With the Dead)
  • Polish: Umawiając się z duchem/trupem (Arranging to Meet With the Ghost/Slain)
  • Finnish: Vainajan pauloissa (Seized by a Deceased)
  • Serbian: U vezi sa mrtvacem (In Connection With the Corpse)
  • Italian: Un amore ultraterreno (An Otherworldly Love)
  • Portuguese (Brazil): Encontro com um Homem Morto (Date With a Dead Man)
  • Russian: Свидание с мертвецом [Svidanie s mertvecom] (Dead Man Dating)
  • Spanish (Spain): Cita con el hombre muerto (Date With the Dead Man)
  • Spanish (Latin America): Cita con un Fantasma (Date With a Ghost)
  • German: Rendezvous mit einem Geist (Date With a Ghost)
  • Hungarian: Halálos szerelem (Deadly Love)

References[]

  1. At the Charmed 20 convention in 2018
Previous Episode:
Thank You For Not Morphing
Next Episode:
Dream Sorcerer
Episodes: Season 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8
Comics: 9 - 10
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