Just Add Magic (TV series)

Just Add Magic is an American live-action family television series, loosely based on the book of the same name by Cindy Callaghan. It was produced by Amazon Studios. A pilot was produced in 2015 and the series commissioned for a full season the following year. Amazon renewed the series for a second season in June 2016 after it "set a record as the most successful Amazon Original Kids premiere weekend in terms of U.S. Prime Video streams and hours."
A followup series, "Just Add Magic: Mystery City", was released on January 17, 2020.
Plot.
Season 1.
In the town of Saffron Falls, teenage girls Kelly, Darbie, and Hannah are best friends who love cooking. While making a cake for Kelly's grandma's (who has a mysterious illness and cannot talk) birthday, the girls make a recipe using an ancient mysterious cookbook they find in the attic of Kelly's house. The recipes have strange names, like "Shut'em Up Shortcake" and "Hazelnut Healing Tart", and require unusual ingredients, such as "Cedronian vanilla" and "Taurian thyme". The girls visit Mama P's shop to get the ingredients for recipes. Mama P reveals that she knows what the ingredients are and the girls conclude that Mama P knows about the magic because she appears to have extensive knowledge of magical ingredients.
Kelly, Darbie, and Hannah investigate the magic recipes and face the temptations of using magic to help overcome the everyday challenges of being middle school girls. Furthermore, they discover that Kelly's odd neighbor Ms. Silvers also has a connection to magic. The girls realize that they are the protectors of the magical cookbook and that there were many others before them, three of whom were Mama P, Ms. Silvers, and Grandma Becky. Among all this, Kelly has one main goal: to find the magical recipe that will fix her grandmother's mysterious illness. As the girls work together, they find out that Kelly's grandma Becky is under a curse, and so is Mama P.(whose curse does not let her leave Saffron Falls ) and Ms. Silvers (whose curse does not let her play the piano in public). Then, they bake a curse-breaking pie which breaks Grandma Becky, Mrs. Silver, and Mama P's curse. Except, it also brings back Chuck.
Season 2 (Part 1).
After Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie free the town from Mama P's curse and also break Grandma Quinn, and Ms. Silvers'
curse, enabling grandma to talk again and Ms. Silvers to play the piano in public. Along with this, they realize that they broke every curse, which means they brought back Chuck Hankins, a teenage boy from the ’60s who had suddenly disappeared because of The OC's (Original Cooks): Gina Silvers (Miss Silvers.), Ida Perez (Mama P.), and Rebecca Quinn (Grandma Quinn). 
When searching through old city records at the library, the girls find a picture of a high school class from 1865. They recognize Chuck in it, with his name as Charles Peizer. The girls realize that Chuck is much older than the OC's and has disappeared once before but has stayed the same age. It is revealed that Charles Peizer and his sister Rose Peizer were once the protectors of the cookbook. The OC's research more into Chuck's picture and find out that the Peizers were the richest family during that time and the West Peizer Park in Saffron Falls was a part of their estate. 
Chuck casts a spell to render an invisible trailer. Through an invisibility spell and a super strength spell, the girls are able to see and enter the trailer. There they discover that Chuck has another cookbook that is stealing recipes from their cookbook. They are able to steal it and discover that Mama P's Morbium Seed was stolen by Chuck. Later the original cooks put a spell on him by making him stay in Lavender Heights forever, thus stopping him from taking the cookbook and stealing the magical ingredients. However, Chuck casts another spell on Jake using Mama P's Morbium Seed and takes over Jake's body. As Jake, Chuck learns the plans to further stop him and has access to the magic spices. Chuck puts a spell on Hannah and tries to swap her for Rose, but Kelly and Darbie save her, and in the process, break Chuck's Immortality Spell, also breaking Rose's and frees her from the book. Chuck and Rose go back in time and live out their lives, with Rose living to be 82. West Peizer Park becomes Rose Peizer Park.
Season 2 (Part 2).
The book and spices are stolen from Kelly's backpack. Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie meet a previous protector from the '90s named RJ. With Jake's help, they are able to get the book back. A mysterious, but beautifully carved box, sits in Grandma Becky's antique shop, with the same fork, knife, and spoon symbol on it as the cookbook. One by one, everyone's memories of magic are being erased. Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie become suspicious of Mr.Morris, Hannah's teacher at Fox Canyon for erasing everyone's memories of magic but it wasn't him, it was Caroline, who was disguised as Jill, Mrs. Quinn's campaign manager, and was trying to erase their memories of magic so that it would never affect anyone again. The trio submitted to Caroline's spell.
Season 3 (Part 1).
Mama P's has been bought by a coffee chain in Springtown Coffee. Kelly, Hannah, and Darbie become suspicious of the manager Erin. They soon notice clues of someone who knows that magic is real, even after all memories of magic have been erased. This, someone, stole their newly harvested Night Blooming spices, and is therefore dubbed the "Night Bandit." The girls meet Darbie's friend, Piper, and they introduce her to magic. The four of them work together to find the Night Bandit and put a stop to their crimes. It turns out that Kelly is actually the Night Bandit and she was poisoned by the spell that brought back the garden in the previous season, Come Back Kombucha Tea. In the final episode, the spell on her is broken, but the girls needed to save Grandma Becky after she disappears. They go back in time and save her, thus also creating a new spice named Parquinnien (Hannah PARker kent, Kelly QUINN, Darbie o’ brIEN; see capital letters). The cookbook moves on to Zoe, Erin's daughter and one of the new protectors.
Season 3 (Part 2).
The cookbook has moved on to the new protectors: Zoe (Erin's daughter), Ish (Zoe's neighbor) and Leo (Zoe's stepbrother). With the help of Kelly, Darbie, and Hannah, the new trio are convinced that magic exists and able to go through troubling times together.
"Just Add Magic: Mystery City" (2020).
In the spinoff series, new protectors Zoe (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport), Ish (Jenna Qureshi), and Leo (Tyler Sanders) are set to solve their first mystery. Zoe, wanting to learn more about her father who had died when she was two years old, uncovers a book at the library that had been associated with him. The book tells a story from the late 1800s, narrated from the point of view of Ian Maddox, who was then a protector along with brothers Clint and Folsom Wesson. The Wesson brothers grew power-hungry and created a magical sourdough starter that would help them get large quantities of gold, but the downside of the spell was that it caused mass destruction. With Charles Peizer's assistance, Ian Maddox travelled to the future to hide the starter from the Wesson brothers. Zoe, Ish, and Leo find themselves in a race against the Wessons' descendants to find the sourdough starter. Their goal is to find three coins that will help them discover where the starter is and then to destroy it once and for all—if the Wessons don't get to it first. Towards the end, with the help of Kelly, Darbie and Hannah, the trio becomes successful in saving the world from all the destruction that could have been caused by using the sourdough starter to distribute the most precious thing they have -'Magic' and as a result, the magic leaves the book and gets distributed throughout.
Episodes.
Series overview.
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Production and release.
On January 4, 2018, a trailer was released announcing more episodes, which premiered on Amazon on January 19, 2018, as an extension of the second season.
On January 11, 2019, a trailer was released announcing the third season, which premiered on February 1.
The series aired on Universal Kids from June 9, 2019, to November 22, 2019.
On September 20, 2019, an announcement was made that a "Just Add Magic" special would come out on October 25.
Reception.
Angela Arsenault of Decider.com positively reviewed the first season of the series, calling it "A More Than Worthy Addition To The Teenage Witch Sub-Genre[.]" Jessica Jernigan also gave the second season a positive review, saying that "[d]arkness and danger is leavened with humor. And the supernatural elements are amplifications of real-life situations and experiences. By the season finale, it’s not just magic that saves the day—it’s also humanity." Giving the first season 4/5 stars, Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media noted that