Archie Comics missed a trick with its latest Sabrina teaser

Unfortunately, Netflix and Archie Comics’ latest tease for the upcoming Sabrina series is dead on arrival, and that’s a shame.

There’s very little that could kill this writer’s enthusiasm for Netflix and Archie Comics’ adaptation of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. No, not even the fact that season 2 of Riverdale has disappointed and seems to think we’re all interested in Archie being in the mob now. Bring on the spooks, says I!

Unfortunately, the latest teaser for the series isn’t as satisfying as it could be.

Earlier today, Archie Comics posted a photo of Hilda and Zelda’s cover in Greendale — a mortuary. Talk about hiding in plain sight:

Now, if you spot that phone number up there, you would imagine that Netflix and Archie Comics have put together an interesting early ad or teaser if you were to call that number. However, this writer has called that number twice, and though it does come up as a New York number, the number itself doesn’t actually go anywhere.

It would be impossible to have a real live person answer the phone every time someone called, though. So, the simple thing? Have a pre-recorded message play. Lucy Davis is Hilda; Miranda Otto is Zelda. That’s both of the Spellman sisters handled. You could even have the two of them both record messages — even multiple messages — so that fans would keep calling back and even engage with it more on social media.

It could even serve as a way to hint at what’s to come in the first season. Perhaps one of the sisters could mention that they’re not currently accepting new clients. Maybe they could even allude to what kind of “rites” they offer. (It could be good practice for either Davis or Otto to work on a properly witchy cackle… though the Spellman sisters are a bit too classy for that.)

Keep an eye on this tidbit as well: both Archie Comics and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa specifically put a hashtag on Greendale. Could we have a name for the series?

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Would you have liked to hear a message from one of the Spellmans about their mortuary?