There was only a couple of things I liked about the Sci-Fi series. The use of hockey stick as staff and drumstick as rod plus giving Bob a sometimes human form due to the actor playing Bob. The rest of it....not a fan.
I agree, though I also thought the actress who played Murphy wasn't bad, considering she looked nothing like the character we know from the books and she wasn't given very much to work with in terms of the writing in that show.
However, I hadn't read any of the DF novels until I heard Jim being interviewed on a podcast (The Slice of Scifi podcast, which was unrelated to the TV channel.) where Jim was promoting both his books and the TV show, which was only a week or two from airing its first episode. Listening to Jim being interviewed, I remember thinking, "This guy is funny, I think I'll pick up the first book of this series and maybe watch the show too." So in an odd way, the creation of the the TV series led me to the novels.
Of course, reading Storm Front and part of Fool Moon before the TV show was cancelled drove home how the show kept missing the mark. I'm not going to go into details, because frankly I don't remember most of them, but all I could think at the end of most episodes was, "This show has potential, but arghhhhhhh! They never quite get it right.
By the way, Jim's up to chapter 42 now.