a rambling review of The Legend of the Seeker

So Saturday November 1st, 2 - 4pm, WGN premiered the pilot of The Legend of the Seeker. Found out about this by chance, watched the trailer, and wasn't too impressed - it seemed like typical fantasy fare, looking like every other fantasy that makes it to the (big) screen nowadays. And the dude playing Zedd looked nothing like how I envisioned Zedd to be, y'know? See for yourself!



But I went ahead and set the VCR (yes we're old school!) to record it, and watched it yesterday.

Okay, firstly I suppose I should say that I have enjoyed Terry Goodkind's books. Okay okay, just the first few in the series.
Okay okay okay so the first book, Wizard's First Rule, was the best, as far as I remember. I found having Richard conveniently learn the Wizards' Rules through his experiences, one book per rule for perhaps the first three or four, to be really really contrived. But I kept on, because there were enough things going on that had me wanting to know how things were going to develop....

But then the books started to contain paragraph after paragraph of the author's philosophical, theological, existential, you name it he did it ramblings. It got just a *bit* irritating after a while.

Then came the major disappointment that was The Pillars of Creation, the story was 99% about someone who seemed totally unrelated to anything else in the series, and only in the last chapter oh what a coincidence Richard, Kahlan et all cross paths with the person we'd followed painfully through the book. Sure, it showed the rule of Richard from the perspective of a D'Haran country bumpkin of sorts, so it was interesting, and yet, as a reader I felt like I'd been used somehow. I finished this book in disgust, and debated whether or not to continue the series.

But I continued anyway. I might have bought the next book, but I know for sure the one after that I borrowed from the Urbana library. omg that was a travesty! Why do you have a book that's both book #9 of the series *and* Book #1 of the Chainfire trilogy? wtf?? Setting aside that weird series/trilogy thingy, I read on and on... and so unsympathetic was I to Richard's plight I really didn't care that Kahlan seemed to havebeen erased from all records and memories except for Richard's own mind. It's a great premise, but everything in the book rubbed me the wrong way.

I again reached the end of the book disgusted, this time swearing for real that I wasn't even going to bother with the remaining two books. I just didn't care anymore. Heck, back in 2006 I purged ALLL the Sword of truth books from my collection! And I have picked up neither Phanthom nor Confessor, even as they sat on the library shelf begging me to pick them up. No way, dude. You lost me at Chainfire.

But back to the tv series (links: imdb, wikipedia, official site)

One word review: "meh"

Want more words?

Cheesy special effects. What's with the slo-mo of Richard launching himself at some opponent or another, both hands hoisting the sword above his head? At least three times! Gah!!

Zedd comes across creepy weird. I remember him as befuddled weird, kinda like Zifnab/Fizban from DragonLance. Not sure if I like him this way.

Richard is blah. I rolled my eyes at the gratuitous shirtless-and-chopping-wood shot, geez could you *be* anymore obvious??

Kahlan is more appealing, there's something arresting about her eyes, voice... but maybe that's because she reminds me of Zooey Deschanel?

I don't remember Fayne from the book, but his character in the show seems well done.

Darken Rahl looks too much like Snape.

The last I read Wizard's First Rule was probably in 1997. As such, I don't remember enough to say just how similar or different the "pilot" (which was actually Episodes 1 & 2 back to pack) is from the book. In general it fits, but I have enough little niggling questions that I might just pick up Book One from the library, just to refresh my memory.

But you know what? I'll probably try and catch the next few episodes, to see whether things improve or not. The challenge is to find out when it's on next. The official site gave me weird info when I punched in my zip code. Thanks to imdb I see that WGN is airing more this Saturday: Episode 2 at 8pm and Episode 4 at 9pm.

read that last part again, please.

Now, all together, let's ask "what about Episode 3?"

*rolls eyes @ WGN*

... how about you, what's your take on Terry Goodkind, his books or this series?