Hey there all,
I guess it's been a bit since anyone replied to this particular thread, but as I only stumbled upon the TV show recently I figured I'd pop in after the fact to leave a comment or two.
First of all, I want to say that I appreciate the effort that went into the show. It was a genuine attempt to make a kickass series of books into a TV show. Personally I couldn't get into it as much as I could the books, but I know that it did turn a lot of people onto the Books and I know that a lot of people loved it, so it clearly did something right. I won't say it wasn't good, because for what it was it wasn't bad at all.
I love the books. I guess the way I would explain it would be to say that in the books, Dresden is a Wizard who makes a living as a Private Investigator (well, of some sort, even if some of his duties fall under other venues). In the show, Dresden strikes me as more a Private Investigator with the knowledge and capacity to use magic. It's a sort of subtle difference I suppose, but I can't think how else to phrase that. Just had a sort of different "feel." Murphy also didn't strike me as the same Murphy from the books, but then her attitudes changed from Storm Front to Turncoat, so it could just be me being stupid because it's been a while since I read Storm Front. The more minor things, such as the Jeep vs Beetle, Hockey Stick vs Staff, Bob being more than a talking skull, etc. don't bother me. In fact, I thought what the show did with Bob was bloody brilliant. In the books things worked as they were, but it seemed like in the TV show we needed someone to talk to Harry so we can see what he's doing/thinking without making him talk to himself. Bob fills that role beautifully, and he's damned cool.
I did enjoy the TV show more as it went on than I did at the start. I'll agree with the first poster on this thread who said that he felt like things were starting to really hit their stride before it was cancelled though, definately had a lot of potential. Again, it's not that I felt the show was bad, just that it wasn't something I would have watched past the first few episodes if I wasn't such a huge fan of the books. That was the selling point for me, but hey, it worked. Pity there isn't more to watch -- For some reason it's Bob that I'm the most sad to lose.
Then again, I am pretty sure I watch less TV than most of America's population, so I'm pretty picky about what I dub worth the time to watch. Before checking out the Dresden Files last week, I think it had been about 2 months since I turned the TV on to watch anything.
Cheers all, and thanks to everyone involved with the show for making it.