The Dresden Files
We're all familiar with wizards: Long robes, pointy hats, beards, arcane and cryptic language... well, lose the pointy hat and that's the creep who hangs around the school bus stop. Anyway, the whole wizard thing was firmly established in our lore even before the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We all knew what a wizard was like.
Harry Dresden is a wizard. He dresses like anyone else, he lives in Chicago instead of the forest green, he talks in normal, colloquial English- okay, so his roommate is a 900-year-old spirit. It's good to have someone you can talk to about things, and being a wizard much of what he deals with on a regular basis would draw too much attention from the public mental-health officials.
The Dresden Files is SciFi's Sunday night lead-in to their hit Battlestar Galactica. Harry Dresden (Paul Blackthorne) is a wizard for hire, sometimes called in by police detective Murphy (Valerie Cruz) to look at a case from a "different angle." Based on the series of books by Jim Butcher the show often alludes to a rich backstory (Like a "Council" keeping the traditional balance between good and evil), but the episodes are designed to be self-contained.
I've never read any of the Dresden Files books, but I found the series to be very accessible right from the pilot. Harry is asked by a young child to save him from the monsters after him. The pilot was framed by flashbacks in which Dresden remembered the death of his mother (He apparently inherited his gift from her side of the family), but aside from this past week's episode when he was hired by an old acquaintance the show doesn't intercut every story with flashbacks.
I like what I've seen. The supernatural elements are presented as down to earth, which helps maintain suspension of disbelief. Even Bob has adjusted to the times, wearing modern clothing and using modern English- no "Thee" or "Thy" that too often is used to tack on supernatural elements. Harry is a very believable wizard, but like all TV private detectives his clients very often leave out key facts of the case, leaving our hero in a precarious situation.
Then again, seeing how our hero deals with such situations is what it's all about.
Harry Dresden is a wizard. He dresses like anyone else, he lives in Chicago instead of the forest green, he talks in normal, colloquial English- okay, so his roommate is a 900-year-old spirit. It's good to have someone you can talk to about things, and being a wizard much of what he deals with on a regular basis would draw too much attention from the public mental-health officials.
The Dresden Files is SciFi's Sunday night lead-in to their hit Battlestar Galactica. Harry Dresden (Paul Blackthorne) is a wizard for hire, sometimes called in by police detective Murphy (Valerie Cruz) to look at a case from a "different angle." Based on the series of books by Jim Butcher the show often alludes to a rich backstory (Like a "Council" keeping the traditional balance between good and evil), but the episodes are designed to be self-contained.
I've never read any of the Dresden Files books, but I found the series to be very accessible right from the pilot. Harry is asked by a young child to save him from the monsters after him. The pilot was framed by flashbacks in which Dresden remembered the death of his mother (He apparently inherited his gift from her side of the family), but aside from this past week's episode when he was hired by an old acquaintance the show doesn't intercut every story with flashbacks.
I like what I've seen. The supernatural elements are presented as down to earth, which helps maintain suspension of disbelief. Even Bob has adjusted to the times, wearing modern clothing and using modern English- no "Thee" or "Thy" that too often is used to tack on supernatural elements. Harry is a very believable wizard, but like all TV private detectives his clients very often leave out key facts of the case, leaving our hero in a precarious situation.
Then again, seeing how our hero deals with such situations is what it's all about.
