Legend of the Seeker?

[Beowulf]

Okay, this isn't really D&D/AD&D related but does anyone here watch Legend of the Seeker? For those of you who haven't heard of it it's a TV series bases (loosely, I'd say!) on the Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule. Overall I really enjoy it!

The Pluses: The show has a pretty good cast, at least for the main 3 characters. I didn't like Richard at first but I've begun to really like the actor in that role, and Kahlan is well cast. The actor that plays Zed is a real ham but it really works. The writing is overall pretty good, with a few caveats. It's produced by the guys who did Hercules but it's not campy or a semi-comedy; it's much darker and more serious.

The Minuses: Okay, the writing. Some episodes follow the book but more don't. And I think there's no reason to change the story unless you have better writers than Terry Goodkind, and let me be the one to break it to them: they don't! Given the length & breadth of the original books there's no need to add filler- it will be hard enough to compress the actual story into a series without superfluous crap added. And they really change some stuff they shouldn't.

Overall a very enjoyable show. There's not much fantasy & sci-fi on TV, especially with BSG ending recently, so another fun program is always greatly appreciated by me.

Anyone else watch the show or have an opinion?

[Algolei]

How odd. I heard the name Legend of the Seeker for the first time yesterday! And now, the second time, with your post. Freaky-deaky.

Where was it made? What station is it shown on?

[Beowulf]

It's shot in New Zealand by the same production company that did Hercules and Xena, but it's not silly like they are. Sam Raimi is the executive producer IIRC. I think it's shown on WGN but I'm not sure since my brother downloads it and we watch it off his Xbox' hard drive.

[Algolei]

WGN

"Women's Gelevision Network?"

*googled!*

Oh, a Chicago station!

WGN-TV is also a pioneering superstation, and continues to program an alternate feed for cable and satellite subscribers throughout the United States and Canada, known as WGN America (formerly Superstation WGN).

Interesting. Never heard of it!

On November 22, 1987, during The 9 O'Clock News sportscast, WGN-TV's Chicago area signal was hijacked for approximately 25 seconds by an unknown person wearing a Max Headroom mask. This was only the first incident of that night involving the interruption of a television station's broadcast signal. Approximately two hours later, Chicago PBS station WTTW (channel 11) had its broadcast interrupted by the same person. WGN-TV's analog transmitter is atop the John Hancock Center and engineers were almost immediately able to thwart the video hacker by changing the studio-to-transmitter frequency, thus cutting the hacker off. Unfortunately for WTTW, its transmitter is atop Sears Tower and it was unable to stop the hacker before enduring almost two minutes of the hacker's interruption. These two stations are two of only six existing victims of what is called "broadcast signal intrusion". Subscription television network HBO, WJLA-TV, Playboy TV and the Comcast cable system in Tucson, Arizona are the other victims.

Coooooool!

And what the heck, while I'm at it:

Legend of the Seeker is a live-action weekly television series based on The Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind. Distributed in domestic syndication by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, ABC Studios is producing the series, which is in its first foray into broadcast syndication, with Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, Joshua Donen, Ned Nalle and Kenneth Biller serving as executive producers. The show premiered on 1 November 2008.

...the show does not air in Canada, unless you pay extra to get WGN.

Ah, nuts.

[Mira]

I'll have to bring this to my husband's attention right away, he was a HUGE fan of the books!

[Algolei]

I'll have to bring this to my husband's attention right away, he was a HUGE fan of the books!

Then he may not like the show. I've been reading a lot of complaints about how far it's "drifted" from the books.

Having neither read the books nor seen the show, I can only compare that to other book-to-show-or-movie storylines, like LotR or Dune.

[Algolei]

Here's a comment I just read today:

One of my biggest issues with the Legend of the Seeker might seem minor to some, but it's how some of the characters are portratyed....

why the **** is Darken Rahl not blonde? Why are Richard's eyes not gray? Why do so many women in the Midlands have long hair? Little things like that were mentioned a MILLION ****ING times in the books. And it really isn't hard to dye one person's hair, give another contacts, and keep the other women with short hair.

I don't like how the show is so different from the books, but I'm giving it the chance for me to just enjoy it as it is. It's like reading Ultimate Spider-Man instead of Amazing Spider-Man.... same concept, different story. It's whatever to me. It's my favorite book series that I ever had the pleasure of reading, but I hated the ending so much (but with the way the series was going there really was no other way of ending it without destroying everything...) and I'll take whatever spin off they want to give me....

[Beowulf]

The hardest thing about watchingTV adaptions are those "little" flaws. Yeah, I am annoyed by them but I came to realize years ago that TV shows, films and books are all distinctly different art forms with different conventions. Somethings are changed for commercial reasons or for to meet time constraints while others are just inexplicable.

It's true they make a lot of departures from the books; it's best to view the series as "inspired by" the novels rather than as an adaption of them.

[Mira]

We've been catching up on it, and it's true it's not completely faithful to the books. Zed uses a LOT more magic than he ever did in the books for one thing.

Still, we're both enjoying it. Neither Jon or I are 'sticklers' when it comes to such stuff, it has to go pretty far off before I really care. As long as it's entertaining and has the right 'flavor', it's fine with me.

It's kind of like "The Beastmaster" series, 95% of what was in the series wasn't in the books. Dar really wasn't one of the big players in the Witch World series actually But I still enjoyed it, it was entertaining.

You CAN go too far, the Dungeons & Dragons movie (the first one) was a complete travesty. Maybe it wouldn't have been as bad (to us) if they had used some other name that divorced it from the game, but because of the name, we kept expecting to see things that mostly fit guidelines. Which didn't happen. (the second movie was done much better IMO, too bad they didn't use that structure for the first one)

Just my thoughts!

[Beowulf]

I did read that Legend of the Seeker has been picked up for a second season, so it's just a matter of time til it's back!

[Beowulf]

Well, the 2nd season of Legend of the Seeker has wrapped, and sadly the show will not return again for a 3rd. But at least the season/series finale isn't a cliffhanger- the events of the story are all resolved satisfactorily, although not as they would have been if they'd have had several more seasons.

All in all I enjoyed this show very much. True, it deviated greatly from the books. As I said previously, at my age I've come to accept that books are books and TV is TV; each has different constraints that they conform to. Certainly I agree that where the writer's ideas differ from Goodkind's, the changes have diminished the story but not to the point where the program wasnt enjoyable.

On the plus side, they resisted the urge to get silly. The actors were very good and had good chemistry. The effects weren't SOtA but they weren't bad. The level of writing was very even and the main characters were protrayed consistently, something that's been an Achille's Heel for other shows I started out liking [cough, cough- BSG! ].

Oh well...it was a good run. Now with Lost & Legend of the Seeker gone, is there anything worth watching on TV?