One of the best fantasy writers I've had the pleasure of reading is Terry Goodkind. His "Wizard's First Rule" was an instant classic and launched The Sword of Truth, a series of dark and violent sword and sorcery style books centering around a young protagonist named Richard Cypher. My good friends Crash & Cainam are huge fans of the series. I unfortunately found myself forced to stop after the 3rd or 4th book. Goodkind's descriptions of Richard's various "trials" became too much for me. I am not a "detached observer" when I read books. Still, I recommend any fantasy fan pick up the first book and go from there.
So today when I came across a new show on Hulu based on the Sword of Truth series, I tuned it. In the muddy and disappointing waters of fantasy TV, the pilot episode of "Legend of the Seeker" stands out. While it essentially follows the same basic premise of the first few chapters of "Wizard's First Rule," it's admittedly not on par with the books. It faces a daunting problem for fans of the books because it very quickly avoids many of the moral grey areas that make the books what they are. Book to TV/Movie purists like Cainam will be hard-pressed to like this show.
Given all the crap in the fantasy/scifi TV genre, past and present, this pilot stands firmly in the middle. For every Battlestar Galactica there's an equally horrible show like the original Battlestar Galactic and it's spin-off BGS 1980. *puke* Even the best, long-running shows like Stargate & Star Trek:TNG started with so-so pilots. And while there are also plenty of quality modern fantasy shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there is a massive void in the classic sword and sorcery end of the spectrum. There have been modest attempts in the past like the short-run Roar with a very young Heath Ledger. There have been tons of OK miniseries like Earthsea. Still, the most popular shows I can think of were the Hercules & Xena shows. This pilot, while cut from the same cloth, was much better than your standard Kevin Sorbo fare.
If this review is leaving you with a lukewarm feeling, I understand. Still, if your a fan of the genre, it's worth checking out. I assume that it's available on cable TV, so set your DVR and watch when you're looking for a distraction. Or if you're like me, catch it on Hulu while playing Warcraft or writing in your blog.
addition
I just watched episode 3. I take back what I say about it being "much better than you standard Kevin Sorbo fare." Now that they've covered the backstory, it's essentially Hercules without the campy humor. The special effects are modernized & the fight-sequence use some Matrix-style slow-mo, but it's still just another legendary journey. Sigh!
3 comments:
Mark me down as a non-fan of Terry Goodkind's work. I tried to get into it, read Wizard's First Rule, started the second, and found the books to have a few cool ideas. But the "trials" endured by the main character just made me think, "This author has issues. And a major S&M fetish."
All the blood, sex, violence, and intrigue of the Sword of Truth series can be found with a far better story in G.R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, which is also getting a TV adaptation (on HBO, so less censorship to boot.) Let's hope it fares better than "Legend of the Seeker."
Hey now, don't crap on my original Battlestar Galactica! Next you'll be saying that Buck Rogers with Gil Gerard and Erin Gray sucked!
You can, of course, crap on Galactica 1980 as much as you want.
I had seen this title out of the corner of my eye but never done any investigation. I am a little suprised to see that this is based on the sword of truth novels.
I've not watched them yet, but this looks like a good lunchtime activity. I can completely understand Nord's dislike for the books as they are very dirty, and I don't mean smutty, I mean dirty. The heroes and the villians all get down in the mud and slug it out. What I've alwas liked is that the evil is so VERY evil. The blood sex and violence are there becasue, reasonably, if you are a truly evil person, these are the sorts of things you'd do.
My issue with Goodkind is why I am wary of this series. Goodkind spends, in most his books, the first two thirds of the book setting up the dominos, and the last third knocking them down. I found myself laboring through the books trying to get to the knockign down stage. As much as I know the last third of the book was better becasue of the first two thirds, it still made for a hard read. For a new series like this, yeah, that style will not work and they are not going to be able to leave you in the dark for 8 episodes to make the last 4 really cool.
Side Note 1: Goodkind also has a bad habit of not giving the reader what they want. I spent a lot of my time reading these books waiting for certain things to happen, that never happen.
Side Note 2: The books tend to revolve around keeping Richard and Kalan apart from each other. This is hard on a TV show as if these 2 stars have chemestry it will be painful to keep them apart that much and the TV show would suffer.
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