.: Breakthroughs :.

Breakthroughs: Holly Marie Combs

Hipper than Samantha and sexier than Sabrina, the three sister witches in the WB hit Charmed also have a bigger mission for their magic: fighting evil and finding themselves hunky boyfriends. "I just had to accept the fact that what I do is basically entertainment," says Holly Marie Combs of her new stint casting spells between Shannen Doherty and Alyssa Milano. "It can't be ground-shaking moral dilemmas all the time." And anyway, the New York City-reared Combs, 25, had plenty of those during her four seasons playing a precocious teen on Picket Fences. Combs got the news that she was witch-worthy while visiting Doherty, an old pal. "We were ecstatic, jumping up and down screaming," Doherty says. "Holly's fiery and feisty. I knew she'd be perfect." Milano has been most impressed by Combs's comedic gifts: "She can be dry like Bob Newhart or physically hilarious." Combs, divorced in 1996 from actor Bryan (Bugsy) Smith, says it's just "fun to do pure fantasy." Okay, maybe not that pure, considering Doherty and Milano's winning ways with the warlocks. But Combs likes to leave the sexy stuff to her costars. "Everybody keeps comparing us to Charlie's Angels, and I'm the one always compared to Kate Jackson," she says. "That's all right with me."