TV Series Review: The Dresden Files

I got a chance to watch the new TV series on the Sci-Fi channel called the Dresden files.

This series is based on the book series by the same name. It stars Paul Blackthorne as Harry Dresden, Valerie Cruz as his police contact Lt. Murphy and Terrance Mann as the visage of the spirit in the skull, Bob.

I want to admit up front, I've only read a couple of the Dresden file book and that was a while back, so I'm not going to compare the books with the series. I'm going to review the series to stand alone. Though from my memory, it did seem a bit different, than the books, but the premise is the same.

Overall, I'd give this series a B maybe a B+. It was a fun interesting show that I will probably catch again. It has a few things going against it.
1. It seems to be a stand alone episode series. So if you miss one, its not that big a deal. Though that is yet to be seen.
2. It is trying to go head to head with Desperate Housewives, which my wife watches. This means unless they play it on another regular time slot, it is almost bound for cancelation.

The overall story, I thought was excellent. The monster, a skin-walker, is after a very sweet looking boy. The boy tries to hire Harry, who basically tells the boy to not believe in monsters. Later the boys shows up again hysterical, so he casts a protection spell to calm him down. This actually protects the boy from the beasty, but the Ravens steal him away to protect him.

The skin-walker shows up at Harry's place and finds out how to find the boy, but Harry gets there first with a magical box he uses to defeat the bad guy. Which he was able to build in less than an hour??

As far as scenery and special affects. What they showed was really good. I liked the apartment and props, and the few affects they did show.

What I didn't like was the details in the story.

Now onto poking holes into the show.
1. This skin-walker is so powerful, it goes in and kills the kids teacher and stills her skin so she can get closer to the child. Ok, seems a bit wasteful, why not just go to the kids house and kill the mom and take her skin?? But I can live with it.

2. She is at the school, with the child alone and instead of just grabbing him and running off, asks him to stay after school??? Huh!!?? Now I know this is all hindsight, because at the time you don't know she is the bad guy, But still, come on. Are we not supposed to look back at the plot.

3. Some lady he had talked to earlier, comes and gives Harry some info about the kid, and then rips down his protections, then dies. This was very confusing to me.

4. The skin-walker comes into Harry's house still looking like the school teacher, holding a skin in her hand. Who's skin was this? Then the next scene Harry is hanging by chains being tortured??? Huh?? Did he just roll over and give up?? I didn't like this at all. It went to commercial and I'm practically licking my chops waiting for it to come back, so I can see him duel it out with this monster. When they come back he is tied up. Very, very bad here.

5. The Ravens. Ok, these guys were just weird. It confused me at first, but I got it later. They are a magical race that can transform into bird form or humanoid form. And are watching out for the child because they had something to do with the original placement of the child.

6. And like I mentioned before. They state that the skin-walker can use a location spell in about an hour to find the boy. Sounds like a pretty easy spell to cast and I was surprised Harry didn't do that on the feather to find the boy earlier. But then he builds this hypothetical, very powerful, jack in the box enchantment. Gets to the old church where the Ravens are keeping him. Talks them into taking the boy back to his house and is ready for the skin-walker when it shows up??? What, was this a 15 minute incant. And Heck, if it was that easy, lets build 20 for the next few monsters we run into.

That was the biggest problems I had with the show. While I loved the story, it just kind of left me with a, huh, why did the characters do that? Feeling.
Too many years as a DM I guess where I didn't have my monsters run head strong into the hero with vorpal blade. Lets be a bit sneaky and smart about how we run our bad guys and good guys for that matter.

A few more special affects would have been good to. At least show Harry attempting to do something to protect himself, even if the skin-walker brushed it easily aside and knocked him across the room, unconscious.

So I love the premise of the show, and I can see so many possibilities in the future, but the writers need to get a little smarter, and drop a few bucks into some special affects. It is a show about a wizard after all.

I'll reserve final judgement for a few more episodes, but it looks like it is going to make a showing in my weekly TV viewing.

Let me know what you thought of it.