Dresden Files 1x01, "Birds of a Feather"

[kate_nepveu]

The TV series based on Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series has started on the SciFi Channel. Harry Dresden is Chicago's only professional wizard; in the first episode, a kid seeks him out based on his ad in the Yellow Pages, saying that monsters are out to get him and his mom.

I've only read the first of the series, though I fully mean to get around to the rest. It was a fast and enjoyable first-person urban fantasy, and I recall thinking that the magic system had some nice touches.

The first episode was decent. I saw a comment that it had not been intended as the premiere, but I thought it was a reasonable introduction regardless, weaving together some of Harry's backstory with his present case. And even though I knew that Murphy the cop and Bob the spirit were recurring characters, I don't think that would have been hard to guess. I wasn't blown away, but I didn't roll my eyes much either. This isn't much my kind of thing on screen, but if it's yours, now you know it exists.

The episode is re-running throughout the week at various times, and at 8:00 this Sunday, with the next new episode to air at 9:00; you can also apparently watch it in full online. (At least one review I saw said that the second episode was much stronger, so we'll see.)

No spoilers for the books in comments, please.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that this was intended as episode 3, and that the original series premiere/pilot, which is a stripped down Storm Front in an hour, is now airing fifth. SciFi Channel appear to have made the decision to reshuffle at an executive level, I think because some implementation details were changed between pilot and series go-ahead [ animating a talking skull convincingly is just out of their budget range, for one. ]

As I may have said before, while I like the series a lot, it really shifts up a level in general tightness and skill in book 3, and it's doing interesting things with long-wavelength plot stuff that both build very well as it goes along and make the earlier books read more strongly in the light of seeing what they were setting up for [ am rereading the whole series over the next few months preparatory to the next one coming out. ]

[kate_nepveu]

I'm not sure animating a talking skull is a good visual idea regardless of budget, so I was perfectly happy with a slightly misty full-body actor as Bob.

[prince-corwin.livejournal.com]

Damn. I forgot all about this, despite seeing huge numbers of commercials for it. It looked vaguely interesting, but having it set in Chciago is a draw....

[kate_nepveu]

I really don't know that much Chicago-ness comes through, but that may be my own lack of familiarity.

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

The show seems to be *slightly* more Chicago-y than the one book of the series I read[*], but that is not saying much. Some cityscapes flashed during scene changes, mostly. They did use what looked like an authentic City of Chicago parking ticket and car boot in the opening scene.


[*] The first one, which might as well have been set in Saint Louis, or Cleveland, or Milwaukee, or Minneapolis, or any other place that would qualify as "Midwestern" and "city." There is really not any sense of place.