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. |
Phoebe works as a psychic at a hotel to help others and make money for Prue's birthday present, the ghost of a recently murdered man who needs help finds she can see him there. Piper falls for him and Prue discovers a devastating betrayal.
Cast
Main Cast
- Shannen Doherty as Prue Halliwell
- Holly Marie Combs as Piper Halliwell
- T.W. King as Andy Trudeau
- Alyssa Milano as Phoebe Halliwell
Guest Stars
- John Cho as Mark Chao
- Patricia Harty as Mrs. Correy
- Elizabeth Sung as Lei Chao
- William Francis McGuire as Nick Correy
- Joe Hoe as Tony Wong
- Todd Newton as Yama
Co-Stars
Magical Notes
Powers
- Molecular Immobilization: Used by Piper to freeze Yama, the gang and a bullet.
- Premonition: Used by Phoebe to read people's fortunes at the hotel.
- Telekinesis: Used by Prue to move a food trolley, to throw one of Tony Wong's men into a pile of boxes, to open a door and to throw Tony Wong down the stairs.
- Intangibility: As a Ghost, Mark Chao was intangible.
- Soul Absorption: Used by Yama to take Tony Wong.
- Smoke-Fading: Type of Teleportation used by Yama.
Beings
Magical Beings
The sisters are protecting Mark from the Yama
- Yama - Guardian of the Gate of Hell. His job is to take all souls to Hell before they are properly buried, despite their prior deeds in their lives. Yama is the only spiritual being that has ever been frozen by Piper's power.
- Mark Chao - Mark Chao was a young man who was killed by a murderer on his Birthday. Then he meets the Charmed Ones and wanted their help then he falls in love with Piper.
Mortals
- Tony Wong - A Chinese arms dealer who killed Mark Chao to fake his own death and to escape to Hong Kong. But Mark's ghost looked for psychic at a hotel for help, and found Piper and Phoebe there. Together they get a picture of Wong being alive. He was shot to death while he was cornered by the police, and then his soul was captured by Yama.
- Lei Chao - Mark Chao's mom. She took care of Mark from the day he was born and belives in spirits.
- Susan Trudeau - Andy's ex-wife.
Notes and Trivia
- Darryl does not appear in this episode.
- This is the first time the Charmed Ones meet a ghost.
- This is the first time Prue meets Andy's ex-wife Susan at Quake.
- 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 facing the sisters (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.
- 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's 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 to 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.
- Although we see Phoebe's vision of Mr. Correy being hit by a Cadillac in black and white, she probably saw it in color as she knows 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.
- The scene where Mark seeks out a psychic to help him, is the similar to storyline to the movie, Ghost, in which the main character seeks help from a psychic, in order to make contact with his wife.
- 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 cancelled due to demonic problems.
- 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 due the fact that 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.
- The Camus novel Piper reads from at Mark's apartment is The Plague.
- 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. However, this could have just been hopeful thinking on her part.
Glitches
- 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.
References to other movies, books, mythology, etc.
- The title of the episode is a reference to "Dead Man Walking", the 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.
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)
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.
- (Piper walks up to Phoebe.)
- Piper: Phoebe!
- Phoebe: Piper! I am so busted, aren’t I?
- Piper: Are you out of your mind, again?
- Phoebe: No, I’m The Amazing Phoebe.
- Piper: This is not funny. Our powers are supposed to be a secret, not a marketable job skill.
- Phoebe: Relax. They didn’t hire me because they think I’m a witch, they hired me because they think I’m a psychic.
- Piper: Hair splitting. You know you can't use your powers for personal gain, not without consequences.
- Phoebe: No, but it's for Prue, it's not for me, it's to pay for her present, it's completely selfless. Besides, this is the last place anyone would expect to find a real psychic, believe me.
- (Mark walks up to Piper and Phoebe.)
- Mark: Which one of you is the psychic?
- Piper: She is.
- Phoebe: Oh, I am.
- Mark: You can see me? Both of you?
- Piper: Of course we can see you, now back off.
- Mark: Oh, thank God. I've tried communicating with every psychic in the city. You were my last chance.
- (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)
- Finnish: Vainajan pauloissa (Seized by a Deceased)
- Czech: Rande s duchem (Date With the Ghost)
- Polish: Umawiając się z duchem (Arranging to Meet With the Ghost)
- 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)
- Slovak: Rande s mŕtvym (Date With the Dead)
- German: Rendezvous mit einem Geist (Date With a Ghost)
- Hungary: Halálos szerelem (Deadly Love)
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| Episodes: Season 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 Comics: 9 - 10 | |