Tonal Shift

Tonight's episode of Legend of the Seeker has been very much more in line with the campy tone of Xena. It was amusingly silly (even if the beginning was super, super awkward).

Also, there are officially gays in the series! Even if the first one was a D'Haran prison guard who was fireballed to death by Zed...

Just What I Like In My Fantasy TV

Tonight's Legend of the Seeker ("Deception") had it all (except Zedd, who I honestly think brings the series down so he frankly wasn't missed).

The show finally showed it could break through the faulty, banal source material from whence it sprang. Morally gray areas, turncoats, the question of revenge versus justice, questioning a soldier's worth, interesting (if still predictable) turns...

I won't go so far as to say it was thoroughly brilliant television, but as far as this series has gone, it was DAMN good. I highly recommend you find a way to watch it. This episode is completely stand-alone and mythology-free (aside from the broad strokes of "Richard is the Seeker, he's fighting some big evil guy named Darken Rahl, and he travels with a woman named Kahlan who is a 'Confessor,' (and her purpose in addition to all of her powers are established within the episode so you don't have to know going in)."

For fanboys of the novels, it probably won't be as high on the list as "Denna" (which was certainly the best episode of LotS before tonight). But I think on a purely "this is an adaptation of a series of novels and it breaks away from those novels" POV, this was the superior episode.

Too bad the show goes into a few weeks of repeats now!

Hot Woman In Skimpy Fantasy Costume Alert

I quite liked Jessica Chapnik as Anna, Richard's ex from Hartland.  The show should find a way to add her into the rest of the regular cast.  She's attractive and different enough from Bridget Regan's Kahlan.  Plus, I'm always a fan of strong-willed female characters.  Oh, well, perhaps the people in charge of the show will realize this and create a way to bring her back into the mix.

Revenant

This episode of Legend of the Seeker would've been much better if I hadn't already seen it / something conceptually like it done MUCH better in Buffy season two ("I Only Have Eyes For You").

LotS

WTF?  Is this episode a clips show?  The series has barely had half a season...

Hahah, okay, there was some "original" material, but plenty of clips throughout.  A little early to be doing an alternaverse episode, no?

About this weekend

Quickly about the rest of 24's first night... meh. Glad I stopped the minute-by-minute commentary because eventually it would've started droning on about "goddammit, why am I still watching this series?" I'll watch tonight's installments and make my decision about continuing to record the show. There had better be some more thrilling cliffhangers. The ratings were middling, and without knowing the effect having House as a lead-in will have on 24, come February it and Heroes will likely be neck-and-neck in the demo (though 24 will likely have the viewer advantage, I am guessing).

Anyway / also... Legend of the Seeker.

The 100-ish pages about Denna, the Mord'Sith (basically the fantasy-world combination of a dominatrix and a professional torturer) was the only truly original and entertaining part of Wizard's First Rule. So I was super-excited that the title of the episode was Denna. But oh my was that an arch performance. Great costuming job, though. However, I seem to remember the description of the pain-inducing instrument (the Agiel) as being a stick that was about foot long and a finger thick. So I got a hefty guffaw when the Agiel prop looked, well, much more like a sex toy than a long, thin, horrifyingly painful instrument of torture and death. Maybe it's just me?

But having Craig Horner shirtless, sweaty, and hanging from the ceiling for much of the episode was appreciated. See, I'm very easily amused when it comes ot campy fantasy series.

And, oy, we're something like 8 episodes into the series and they've already introduced something called "the breath of life" (I don't recall this from the book, but it has been a while and I didn't read past the first in the series)... which basically eliminates death provided you get "the breath of life" shortly after you die. Good lord, we've learned nothing from Heroes' second season. NOTHING! Anyway, Denna was brought back to life at the end of the episode, unbeknownst to our heroes, so I guess the show wanted a recurring villain. She's no Callisto... but I guess she'll do?

Legend of the Seeker

Well... let's just get this out of the way.

Xena it ain't.

I've read the first book in the "Sword of Truth" series on which Legend of the Seeker is based. I liked it a lot. I was told by friends who'd read the rest of the series or at least other books in the series that subsequent installments suffered from diminishing returns and from eventually excessive preachiness on the part of author Terry Goodkind.

Anyway.

We've got HD New Zealand scenery. That does count for something. And we've got two women on horseback with heaving bosoms (the women... not the horses...) with a bunch of armored men in hot, archery heavy, occasionally slow motion pursuit. Oh, no, blonde breasty woman in black garb got shot. I don't remember this from the book. But I read it over three years ago... so it may have happened? Um, actually, I'm pretty sure it didn't. But yay death in shallow, muddy streams. And Kahlan runs into a shiny barrier. Ah, yes, this definitely did not happen in the books kind of sort of at least not at the beginning. I'm remembering the books better now. Three separate kingdom-ish things with barriers keeping them apart since times of yore based on some moral issue surrounding the use of magic. I think? Anyway, the books started with Richard, our naive woodman soon-to-be hero, as opposed to Kahlan the Confessor, she of the cool temper and impeccably white dress. Kahlan was already through the barrier. There may have been a flashback-y explanation of her coming through at some point... again, my memory ≠ perfect. But I totally understand using this sequence to start off. There's urgency, death, and, well... women with heaving bosoms. Are you liking what you're seeing, young male viewing audience?

Sidenote... IIRC the last 150-ish pages involve Richard becoming some dominatrix's torture victim. How's this going to work on TV???

Okay, I'm just gonna let the mindnumbing action-hour (or two!) take me back into the cold, dead, raped corpse of the book I read years ago. Peace out, ya'll!

But don't get me wrong. I'm very happy to have a fantasy hour on TV.

I just wish George R. R. Martin would get A Song of Ice and Fire done faster so HBO could do the seven books. Read "A Game of Thrones" if you haven't. It'll knock your socks off.