There are three recent TV shows that appeared on my radar as I’ve read the book series they were adapted from.

The Dresden Files

This Sci-Fi installment is the oldest of the stack and has survived one season only. The book series by Jim Butcher have 11 novels to the wiki knowledge and I’ve read eight of them so far.

The premise

Set in the world of magic realism, the story follows the adventures of Harry Dresden, the only wizard listed in Yellow Pages of Chicago, and a real one for that matter. Despite his attempts on quiet and unambitious way of living, Mr. Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden often finds himself dealing with rogue vampire lords, human mob bosses and each and every kind of demon/spook/death curse possible.

Book pros

The series is heavily stylized to resemble noir detective stories, only in magical setting: the lone hero in a long duster coat against a whole army of baddies, saving the world and the occasional damsel in distress. Humor and cheeky approach truly set the series apart (one of my favorite scenes is the animated museum T-Rex crushing the army of undead in downtown Chicago).

Book cons

Highly repetitive, as the genre requires.

TV adaptation pros

Harry Dresden, wizard

Casting Paul Blackthorne as Harry Dresden worked great for me — Paul’s got the looks and the attitude just right.

What went wrong

What usually does: oversimplification of the plot. Each book in the series has Harry working on a big case while also dealing with his complicated personal life, and certain distinctive threads link the books to each other.

While the decision to make each episode of the show a complete case is fully justified, I felt that the links and the attributes of what made Dresden Files fun were overlooked and lost in the process. And the cases presented on the show were not enough to hold interest on their own.

The Legend of the Seeker

This show is based on the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I have a post dedicated to the books, so long story short: a fantasy realm, a Chosen one armed with the Sword of Truth must save the world from the Dark Lord.

Book pros

SoT is one of the quirky-kinkiest fantasy stories out there.

Book cons

Should have been finished long ago — the latest books lost their charm for me and feel empty. The intricate card house of magic laws started falling apart too to provide the author with new plots.

TV adaptation pros

Hmm, lemme think… Joseph LoDuca score? Picturesque New Zealand landscapes? Female lead goodies on constant display? That might be it.

What went wrong

Basically everything. I don’t understand, why would somebody take a fully developed magical world, ditch all the stuff that makes it amusing and unique, add the most overused ingredients (the Massacre of the Innocents, anyone?), keep only the names of characters and places and call that an adaptation. The complicated and twisted story has been turned into ‘found bad stuff, must save people and eliminate evil, rinse, repeat’ episode type. The whole grand plot has been ruined and replaced with very basic and lousy subplots which lack intrigue, consistency and character development.

Say hello to Mistress

Considering all said, imagine my shock when I saw the episode ‘Denna’ when they suddenly switched to the torture-porn channel. I thought that maybe some SoT fans caught the writers, chained them in the basement and presented them the Mord’Sith way while sending directions for the episode via email. But that certainly did not last long, and somehow glimpses of the real book made it even worse. I wish somebody would put this show out of its misery.

True Blood

This one is a heavy-lifter from HBO. HBO is The Sopranos and Rome, and True Blood creator is the person behind Six Feet Under, so expectations were higher than usual. The books in question are the Southern Vampire chronicles by Charlaine Harris.

The premise

TruBlood ad

Here we’ve got another case of magic realism but contrary to #1 (where people are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of supernatural and turn a blind eye to its manifestations) in Harris’ world vampires made their presence public, they are fully legit; and it all was possible due to synthetic blood that can sustain the suckers.

The protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in a small (fictional) town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. She’s cute and otherwise ordinary girl if not for one thing: she’s a mind-reader. Now, everybody knows that being a mind-reading waitress in a small town is a recipe for trouble, and the troubles start towering when Sookie falls for the local vampire, one Mr. Bill Compton, with comfortably quiet mind and manners of a gentleman circa the Civil War.

Book pros

Rather solid series in its niche. I’ve read only the first two, and while not being anything remarkable they provided certain level of entertainment.

Book cons

Two much similarity to the Anita Blake series by Laurell Hamilton for my taste.

TV adaptation pros

Two words: OPENING CREDITS. Both the visuals and the song work together perfectly to create the required atmosphere of sizzling heat, misty swamps and woods hiding unimaginable monsters, and voodoo rituals followed by gospels, sending shivers down your spine. A true masterpiece in itself.

As far as I remember, the first season of the show (it has been renewed for a second 12-episode season) followed the course of the first book rather closely, extending and cutting here and there but staying on the same course.

Sookie and Bill

I’ve read several reviews that tore True Blood to pieces, being especially rancid about Anna Paquin’s performance as Sookie. That felt rather strange as I thought that both Sookie and Bill on the show were very similar to their book prototypes. I don’t remember Sookie’s brother being that big an idiot or the local vamp boss Eric being that glamorous and not at all menacing but other than that the adaptation seems flawless.

What went wrong

1. Fangs. Nobody does them right, I admit.
2. Accent. I’m not American, I can’t tell real Southern accent from the fake one, but the accents on the show felt forced and unnatural.

Why do I care?

Recently there was another fantasy show, BBC’s Merlin, and while, thankfully, it wasn’t a book adaptation in the strict sense, you can get from the title that it’s another take on the story of the king Arthur and Camelot. That one was BEYOND good and evil. Way beyond.

But: HBO is considering another adaptation, this time the biggie — A Song of Ice and Fire I’m so obsessed with. There’s one and only chance it might turn out good: if HBO people would forget the word fantasy and give it Rome- or Tudor-esque treatment it deserves.

Dollhouse

Since the brilliant and unexpected Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog each and every Whedon fan was looking forward to this one.

Starring unappreciated beauty Eliza Dushku and the whole 6’ 2½” of Tahmoh Penikett (Helo from Battlestar Galactica), the show revolves around the organization providing exquisite service — people ideal for the client’s job. Any job.

Tasks vary from a party girl spending the perfect weekend with young rich bachelor to hostage situation in Mexico but what makes the service really unique is that the corresponding personas are loaded into the dolls (people with erased memories who live in the Center).

Dushku is Echo, one of the dolls, and Penikett is Paul Ballard, an FBI agent obsessed with discovering and demystifying the Dollhouse.

Tahmoh Penikett

The pilot was rather intense in the action department yet otherwise unimpressive. It definitely lacked something important. The following course of events seems to be quite predictable: Echo will be doing some crazy stuff while reminiscing things that happened to her in the past; her nasty she-boss with an accent will be ‘acting in the best interests of dolls’ as they put it; Ballard will be pursuing the Flying Dutchman of Dollhouse, and Ballard’s bosses will be pressing him to let go and drop the investigation; etc, etc.

Eliza Dushku

Now, such a premise can be saved by some awesome characters. I felt that Penikett as Fed was doing his best compared to the others. Dushku as Echo was very convincing as a party girl but when she appeared in that ‘sexy librarian’ outfit, with glasses and pearl studs — well, it just didn’t click. I was as skeptical for her negotiation abilities as the guy she was working for, and it didn’t fade away.

All in all, I still have hopes for this show. We know that a miracle is required for this one to make it to full season, damn you, Fox. You brought back woman whose head was chopped off and put in a box in Prison Break, and yet we have to cross our fingers for Whedon’s child to drive further than its predecessors.

Lie to Me

Tim Roth

This one had an ace up its sleeve — one Mr. Tim Roth. The premise was supposedly fun too: watching the character of aforementioned Mr. Roth casting light on the lies of others by studying their facial expressions.

Well, guess what: it didn’t work. Tim Roth alone just isn’t enough.

There are so many shows out there these days that center on the genius / unconventional / rather arguable approaches of some highly irritating / mildly eccentric / somewhat charming quirks and weirdos (House MD, Psych, Monk, The Mentalist to name but a few). The show so far hasn’t shown any depth. Yes, the bits about studying expressions are quite entertaining, like watching Discovery channel. The images of Jessica Simpson/former president/other infamous people caught with wildly exaggerated expressions being compared to some indigenous people are just cheesy.

The science team is as bland as the white office walls, basically walking and talking props. The challenges they have to face — not so challenging after all. The underlying conflict of the main character (there always is one) is hinted at so slightly it almost goes under the radar.

This show doesn’t deserve Tim Roth. Period.

The Beast

Patrick Swayze

As much as I was biased, this one happened to be fun to watch. The story of experienced Federal agent Charles Barker (Patrick Swayze) who has his not always legit ways to serve justice and his rookie partner Ellis Dove (Travis Fimmel) working undercover is a collection of cliches but a nicely executed one.

Patrick looks rough and tough: smiles a crooked smile of a long-time cynic, laughs a throaty laugh of a frequent smoker and kicks ass. With a rocket launcher.

Travis (imdb tells me, a former Calvin Klein model) looks like an illegitimate child of Brad Pitt (circa Ocean’s [two-digits number]) and younger Ray Liotta. Also he looks constantly high, all sweaty and with runny eyes. Not so bad for a model.

The Beast cast

Of course, some FBI bosses just cannot stand it when the work is getting done, so there’s an Internal Affairs investigation, digging dirt on Patrick’s character, and of course, the rookie partner is being torn apart by the hard choice of who his loyalty should belong to.

As you can see, the writers just opened the TV Show Writer’s Companion on the Police/FBI/Homeland Security chapter and went along in alphabetical order. But: 5 eps later I still find it entertaining, the action is there, and they have managed to cover Russian, Romanian and North Korean mobs already.

And Patrick did his best Romanian accent. See: it is fun.

United States of Tara

Toni Collette

A Steven f*king Spielberg dark comedy about a woman coping with dissociative identity disorder, her other personalities emerging from the depths of her mind when she feels unable to handle the situation. The recently beloved Oscar-winning former stripper, creator of Juno, Cody Diablo is writing the script.

Fantastic Toni Collette plays all the identities of her character, Tara, including sexually obsessed redneck type guy, a slutty teenage girl, a Stepford wife and who knows how many others.

Tara has been on medication for a long time, but the side effects were too much, so she and her husband (John Corbett) decided it was time to go off the meds. The whole bunch of identities has reappeared and the family is not excited at all.

Long story short: despite the idea, Toni’s performance and big name in the credits, this show is definitely ‘painful to watch’ (c) Pajiba review. The family is not just dysfunctional, it’s screwed up BIG TIME. Otherwise bland husband wants to have sex with all the personalities except for his wife and Buck. The son is sex-obsessed and supposedly gay and still wets his bed at the age of 14 (spoiler: I’m not so sure about that after the ep #6). The daughter is so desperate she’s likely to have sex with any guy around (including her sleazy geeky boss at the local fast food place). Tara’s sister is more crazy than Tara herself (who was at least diagnosed and treated). It sucks to be them and it doesn’t make me feel better about my life. Call me a quitter, but the peeing episode has decided it for me.

People, I’m so shocked right now I’m going to ask you in that wonderful Russian accent of mine:

Vot ze f*ck voz Serena vearing?

I noticed the trend, you know: they are dressing S. in more and more slutty outfits, I believe it is supposed to show her tits development as a person. Slightly slutty sexy S., I got it. But was it really intended to become ‘ouch, it fell into reaally hot water and shrank to fit a ten-year-old, lets throw in some cheap looking peasant blouse and heavy beads necklace‘ sexy?!?

And yet I loved the final sequence when the patient overcame his fears and walked out of the building and House couldn’t.

Blame it on my inner nerdiness or fortunate position of the constellations but I find TBBT hysterically funny. The casting is brilliant, the chemistry on screen — unmistakable, the scripts — pure joy. It’s one of those rare character-driven gems that lighten up your day after some TV show goes sour. I haven’t laughed that hard since IT Crowd (and with two seasons and 12 episodes total that was simply not enough).

The premise of the show is rather simplistic: The Nerd and The Nerdier roommates Leonard (IQ 173) and Sheldon (IQ 187) meet their new neighbour, pretty material girl Penny. The brainiacs have two friends: a horny engineer Howard Wolowitz and Raj, a cute astrophysicist who turns mute in front of girls. Leonard is less smart more social, so he immediately falls for Penny.

Sheldon:

Okay, look, I think you have as much of a chance of having a sexual relationship with Penny as the Hubble telescope does of discovering that at the center of every black hole is a little man with a flashlight searching for a circuit breaker. Nevertheless, I do feel obligated to point out to you that she did not reject you. You did not ask her out.

Leonard:

Our kids will be smart and beautiful.

Sheldon:

Not to mention imaginary

Leonard:

I’m a male, and she’s a female.

Sheldon:

But not of the same species.

Writers managed to get the best of the plot exploring and gently and lovingly mocking stuff the geeky guys are supposed to enjoy: comics, Sci-fi TV shows, MMORPG, social networks, etc.

Leonard:

We need to widen our circle.

Sheldon:

I have a very wide circle. I have 212 friends on myspace.

Leonard:

Yes, and you’ve never met one of them.

Sheldon:

That’s the beauty of it.

Sheldon (about Penny playing Halo):

I don’t know how, but she is cheating! Nobody can be that attractive and this good at a videogame.

What sets this show apart is the cast. Each character has a distinct style in clothes, specific gestures, mannerisms, even a definite way of walking.

All the four types are easily recognizable. If you’re in IT or science or accounting you met at least one of them for sure.

Dr. Sheldon Cooper

Each and everyone on the show is just perfect but Sheldon is the ultimate star. The actor plays the part effortlessly, balancing on the very edge of driving you nuts and still being adorable. Gosh, I want to adopt him to shield him from this cruel world where things happen not according to schedule, people occupy his favorite spots, Tangerine Chicken is actually Orange and some smug female Ph.Ds call him names.

The show is deep into second season and it hasn’t lowered the bar even an inch. I’m still afraid that one of Murphy laws would kick in but even so it already provided almost unbeliavable amount of laughs and such genuinely good things are so scarce these days.

Serena is plain annoying, not so bad herself as a character but the quest of bringing her on a level higher than Blair makes the sunny blonde almost intolerable.

Dan was so sweet and good he made my teeth hurt. Then the whole Georgina affair, the aspiring young b*tch Jenny setting a bad example worked as a makeover. Yet the good-boy-turned-bad overture to new subplot did nothing to improve Dan’s rating. And yet, and yet…

I do understand the ‘You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your handsome prince‘ approach but even so Serena doesn’t deserve that loathsome weakly-faced wimp of a man, the so called artist Aaron.

Do something with your facial hair (and hair hair or head hair or scalp hair or whatever hair), you, scarf clad lackluster douchebag! You are a stain on the reputation of artistic type of appeal! I want to strangle you with that scarf each time you’re consuming screen space.

Ok, I almost have gotten into multiple exclamation marks territory. Have to constrain myself. Breath in, breath out…

UPD: Jeez, the deceased Desperate Housewife (Brenda Strong) was there too.

UPD2: the crazy Mia from Californication is there, looking so innocent and helpless.

UPD3: Rory’s father new girl Sherry is Mädchen Amick who had a perfect b*tchy presence on Gossip Girl (playing a gold digger wife) and Californication.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read the last book (at the moment) in Sword of Truth (SoT) series. It was the 7^th or even 8^th, I think.

My feelings about the book were mixed. I loved me some fantasy back then. And it appeared to push all the right buttons. Behold:

1. Cute guy living in a forest who is destined to get the sword out of the stone and become a king for great things — check.
2. A seemingly harmless old man who is a mighty wizard in disguise — check.
3. A magic sword that is meant only for one person (guess who?) — check.
4. A pure evil that is a major peril to the kittens, dolphins and vicunas along with democracy and human rights all living things — check.
5. A pretty girl whose fate is intertwined with our hero’s and a miserable fate it is — check.
6. Dragons — what, only #6? How could I forget the dragons? — check.
7. Many other traditional things such as witches, trip to the underworld, evil kings and queens (or duchesses, I don’t remember exactly), curses, other magical artifacts, etc. — check.

But: the more I was into reading it the closer resemblance it seemed to bear to the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (WoT). WoT got to me first so, I thought, maybe I was just being prejudiced.

The story and origins of the main character, the bipolar system of magic, the manipulative Sisters of Light (and Dark Sisters among them), discrimination of male wizardry, the avoidance of naming the evil god — these are the points I remember now but back then I had a whole table of similarities between those two.

Among other things these books have in common are huge armies of fans and the ability to capture and hold reader’s attention. But while WoT feels like a clean version, Sot is more like a wicked dream.

Some scenes are full of vividly described violence but the hardest things are only hinted at and the moment you think of them is the moment you start hating yourself for what you can come up with.

There is a whole army of Mord’ Sith, women who were taken from their parents at very young age, abused and tortured to become the torture masters themselves (also immune to magic). They are dominatrixes clad in skin tight red leather who can reduce even the strongest person into begging and weeping. Does not it count as porn already?

The magic sword (see cl.3 above) is a broken toy too: it only works if the sword bearer truly believes that his opponent is guilty, otherwise it’s useless.

The girl (cl.5) is a holy figure, Mother Confessor, with a power to perform non-surgical lobotomy on people to learn The Truth. The person is a vegetable afterwards though. Side effects of Truth are unpleasant.

With each story arc our hero gets a new enemy that wipes the floor with him in the beginning of the arc and is wiped in the end. No matter what wild powers the protagonist got in the process, the next arch-enemy will overthrow him easily.

I know that there are a few more books but I have no desire to indulge in this guilty pleasure.

Ah, the books also had some strong allusions to Soviet Union as the Empire of Evil. And the main character (who somehow turned sculptor) defeated it by carving a sculpture that by description was a dead ringer for the famous ‘Worker and Kolkhoz Woman‘ only naked.

So, what was that all about? Ah, yes. It was decided to be made into a TV show, Legend of the Seeker. And it’s Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi. It might be cheesy but I’m sold.

Links:

• official TV show site;
• imdb page;
• Terry Goodkind official site.

Gilmore Girls caught my attention because I kept seeing references to it in various blogs.

It’s kinda fun to watch the comparatively old series and see some faces that are now everywhere and to draw some parallels to what we have on TV these days.

First of all, the older of the Girls, Lorelai (Lauren Graham) reminds me so much of ‘Weeds‘ Nancy though the former is much more likable. She’s almost as reckless, irksome and even crazy. Her behavior is childish at best and she freaks out in the most important moments. She cannot control her emotions at all. Yes, she’s working hard (not dealing pot) and yes, she’s studying at business school, but it is never shown as to make an impression, it is just mentioned from time to time.

Her daughter Rory on the other hand is an angel of a child. In more recent TV shows it is Susan/Julie relationship in Desperate Housewives when a not so mature mother has a very serious and ambitious daughter who can take care of herself. These days mothers on TV are much more dysfunctional than in 2000.

Not only is Jared Padalecki (Supernatural) playing Rory’s boyfriend, his name is actually Dean. I also spotted Mama Petrelli (Cristine Rose of Heroes) in one episode, and she was a haughty b*tch as usual.

With all that said, I am really envious of Lorelai/Rory relationship because despite all the quirks and troubles they are not just mother and daughter, they are closest friends and that means that Lorelai was successful in overcoming her conflicted childhood with authoritarian mother and indifferent father.

I will continue watching Gilmore Girls though I don’t think it will work for me for whole 7 seasons.