Well, here was certainly a missed opportunity for a TV show. The Dresden Files was a show on Sci-Fi based upon the book series by Jim Butcher; as readers of this very fine site may already know, I am quite the fan of the books (with a review of the latest book found here), and thus had high hopes for this adaptation. What I got was a show that had all sorts of odd problems, but yet had promise and had even started to grow on me before dying an untimely and premature death (can a death ever be timely but still premature?).

The TV series, like the books,details the ongoing escapades of one Harry Dresden (played by Paul Blackthorne, quite the good wizard name in and of itself), the only professional wizard in Chicago who advertises his services in the Yellow Pages. He works as a private investigator while occasionally helping the Police out with cases that have odd or supernatural bents to them (not that the supernatural exists, by any means... of course not!). Yes, yes, I know... wizard named Harry, really original. Just ignore that, and move on.

So, to get it out of the way, as it is required of me in such a review (it's part of my contract here, the one written in crayon that I'm only allowed to see once a year, as it is otherwise guarded by a pack of rabid sloths. We take security seriously around here at Geek Speak Magazine), let’s discuss the main differences, inexplicable and otherwise, between the books and the show. Instead of Harry's staff, blasting rod (i.e. his wand), and his trusty Blue Beetle car from the books, in the show, he has a hockey stick, a drumstick, and drives a old Army jeep. Instead of the White Council, it's called the High Council. Rather minor details that don't really make much difference, but it does make me wonder why the change to begin with -- it wouldn't have been hard to keep things more in line with the books, but whatever.

Larger differences include details of Harry's past, and the characters of Murphy and Bob, the latter being the biggest change of all. Instead of an intellectual air spirit who lives in a skull, Bob is the ghost of a old sorcerer, damned to, well, live in a skull. The change was obviously made to explain having an actor play Bob, so it is understandable, but I was admittedly rather apprehensive about this change. I shouldn't have been. Some of the changes didn't have much of a point, but Bob worked well. So if you were worried about the changes/differences between the books and the two Dresden Files, don't be. Some are a tad jarring at first, but you can get past those and attempt to watch the show for what it is on its own.

So, the show, on its own (that's me, segue master of Geek Speak Magazine). Well, it has issues, some inherent in the plot itself, and some due to how it was handled. A 2-hour pilot movie was made, based upon Storm Front, the first book in the series. The executives at Sci-Fi liked what they saw and ordered the series. They then proceeded to Firefly-ize (we can make that word, right?) the show by airing it completely out of order, including cutting down the 2-hour pilot into one hour and airing it as episode 8. One glaring problem (one?!) that this created was that the episode that was aired first was not that good of an introduction to the show, the characters, and the premise. Knowing all this, I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, like Firefly, the show didn’t quite find the audience that the executives were hoping for, and it was canceled after the initial run of 12 episodes.

But unlike Firefly, this show didn’t quite gel together as well in the short time that it had. The actors were all… fine. The chemistry between them all was… fine. The writing of the show was…fine. (Sensing a theme here?) It wasn’t bad, per se, but there wasn’t necessarily enough (particularly early in the out-of-order season) to really grab a viewer, particularly one not already familiar with the books.Heck, it’s a show about a wizard, so one would expect magic. And there is magic, but not nearly as much as one might think (particularly (again) early in the out-of-order season)(Hmmm…yet another theme? Or part of the same theme? Discuss…), and in many instances the “magic” that was being done was rather subtle, and/or just a flash of light or two. Were they trying to save on the special effects budget? Perhaps, but disappointing nonetheless.

But despite the things lacking (why wasn’t Harry more wisecracking-under-pressure?) and the otherwise mediocrity inherent, I did start to like it, even in the short time it was on the air. Perhaps I was getting more used to the style and getting over the differences between the show and the book, or perhaps the latter shows really were just that much better than the first few (the original pilot -- and even the edited version thereof -- was really pretty darn good. They really ought to have started with that!)(Though one oddity is that they revamped some things between the original pilot and the rest of the show, which made for some strange discrepancies when they finally aired the original pilot). Whatever the case, the plots were getting better and more interesting, potential intriguing hints for future possibilities were dropped, and the characters were starting to gel. I was hoping the show would be renewed and was sad when it wasn’t.

So, is it worth watching now, a few years after the fact? Despite the issues, yes, I would recommend it. If you’ve read the books, then the show is worth watching just for fun, if only to see how a visualized version of them would go. If you haven’t read the books, well, you should, and then refer to the previous sentence. Overall, the adaptation had some issues, but it showed a lot of potential. It always felt like it could be so much better than it was, and that it was quite close to getting there; the later episodes are evidence of that. So quite the missed opportunity, but worth catching anyway. And heck, the entire show is available on DVD for less than $15 on Amazon! You can’t go wrong at that price!

It’s almost… magical
 
  -- K. Burtt

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Further Reading

Geek Speak's Changes review, by K. Burtt

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