POLL: End Game Opinion of the Series

[twinswin123]

So wait...What replaced the TV series?

[thelordbeans]

I've seen all of the episodes (except the original pilot) and I didn't like it. It wasn't bad, but I don't think it did the books justice by any stretch. The dialog seemed uninspired - Harry, the perennial wiseass, said only one funny thing the entire season (I think it had something to do with Mayans, I don't remember). Also, I could never shake off the feeling that Paul Blockthorne was a creepy stalker instead of a hero with good intentions that just looks like a creepy stalker at times. The individual episode plots weren't exactly captivating. They didn't describe how magic works, like Butcher does in the novels, or at least not much, and I remember them getting some things wrong about magic. Bob was horrible - I don't care if Bob is a talking skull or a person that lives in a skull and pops out genie style, but TV Bob and book Bob are completely different people.
It needed work... I don't know where, if it's just bad writing, or also bad actors, or not enough effort put into it, or not enough money... maybe Butcher should have written some of the scripts, or maybe helped direct a little (like Frank Miller in Sin City), but I wouldn't be surprised if he has his hands full with writing his great novels.
Maybe a mini TV series would be better (a few episodes all about Storm Front) or a full fledged movie, if that was possible. Otherwise... don't continue the TV show, unless it gets some type of revision.
edit: also, it might be better than the other stuff they show on Sci-Fi channel (I don't watch much Sci-Fi channel, if any), but it's not a show I'd watch if I wasn't a Dresden Files fan

edit2: I admit, I really liked the hockey stick

[Spyndel]

I actually watched the show  (or a few episodes of it, if it was on) before I read any of the books.  I found it sort of lackluster and a bit uninspired.  I agree with some of the others here that I thought the dialog could be much better.  You can live with practically any show budget as long as the scripts are entertaining.  It wasn't awful.  It was better than most Sci Fi channel fare, but that's damning with faint praise.   I had no problem with the cast.  I liked the "grubby PI" look Blackthorne had.  I found the woman who played Murphy strangely "hot", but as we all know now...that's not Murphy.  I even thought the hockey stick Staff was a clever idea.  I understand Bob needing to be a person, though he  of course, wasn't *BoB*.

 But even from a from a (then) non book fan perspective, I wanted livelier dialog and more over-arcing storylines.  The "monster of the week" theme is seldom very interesting to me.  That worked for Xfiles because they split the episodes up between really entertaining monster of the week shows, and powerfully addictive mythology shows.   The latter aspect seemed really underdeveloped in TV Dresden. I understand that this is often what Studio and network executives dont want, because they fear people dont want to watch something they cant just jump right into.  All I can say is when I DO watch television shows, its almost always because of compelling story arcs.


And its a shame, because it almost put me off reading the books, which I since have and have come to really enjoy.  Looking back on the show now after having read the books, it seems even less appealing.  After some time has passed, I would really enjoy seeing a new effort to bring Harry to the small screen, maybe as number of mini series, much more in line with the tone and storylines of the books.


This is not to put down any of the people involved.  I know putting together a television show that really fires on all cylinders is a difficult task, and things can go wrong in the mix for any number of reasons, with so many fingers in the pie. 

[Tribblechomper]

So wait...What replaced the TV series?

Repeats of BSG and Doctor Who, until new eps became available; oh, and the occasional SciFi Originals Beastie of the Week movie!

Can you believe Kevin Sorbo's so pinched for a paycheck that he'd do that "Aztec Rex" movie airing this weekend?

Guess the residuals from Hercules and Andromeda are drying up...

[thelordbeans]

An addendum: I do think the show had potential, and deserves a second shot. And it's better than Charmed

[FlaggerX]

Question: Does SciFi own the rights to the Dresden Files?

I mean why should the show be stuck there?   Surely there are other venues, and frankly some shows have survived because of good DVD sales.

Why not look elsewhere?

[Benchleyfan]

Overall, I thought the show had potential.  My main problem with Bob wasn't so much that they turned him into a ghost, but it seemed like the actor was channeling Tim Curry most of the time.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but it made me wish Tim Curry was playing Bob.  sigh.  I'm sorry that there won't be a season two.

[Darkling]

Overall, I thought the show had potential.  My main problem with Bob wasn't so much that they turned him into a ghost, but it seemed like the actor was channeling Tim Curry most of the time.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but it made me wish Tim Curry was playing Bob.  sigh.  I'm sorry that there won't be a season two.

That was Terrence Mann playing Bob.  If you're a fan of Broadway theatre you probably know the name.  He's the original Javert on Broadway's Les Miserables, in Cats he was Rum Tum Tugger, in Disney's Beauty and the Beast on Broadway he was Beast / The Prince, in Scarlet Pimpernel he was Chauvelin and the list goes on...  He's on all those plays original cast recordings too.  He has an incredible voice for singing. It's strange that they never exploited it for the show. 

What he did with Bob was the sort of character he tends to lean toward.  In fact there was an old poll years ago where people thought he and Tim Curry had been separated at birth.  When they were younger they actually looked identical.  Of course today Tim Curry dyes his hair and put on some weight, drifting toward TV guest spots while Terrence Mann went silver and for the most part stuck to theatre.

Tim Curry and Terrence Mann know each other, by the way.   Terrence Mann is the younger of the two by about seven years.   In fact in 2001 Terrence Mann took on the Broadway role of Dr. Frank N. Futter for The Rocky Horror Show (I was there for one performance) while Tim Curry was in town doing A Christmas Carol as Scrooge (which I went to twice).  There's a picture of them together from that year.



That's Sebastian Bach as Riff Raff, Tim Curry as himself, and Terrence Mann as Dr. Frank N. Futter.   

The funny thing is they criss-crossed that year.  From what I've read, Terrence Mann had been Scrooge over five years earlier and Tim Curry was taking over the role and Tim Curry had been the original Dr. Frank N. Futter and Terrence Mann was taking over the role.

I love Terrence Mann's work.   It's such a shame they didn't do more.  I completely agree with Micky that Hrothbert of Bainbridge (Bob) was probably the best change they made from the books to the show.  I adored him.   The one thing that bothers me most about the show ending is we didn't get to see more done with the show's version of Bob.

Maybe someone should ask Robert Wolfe to team up with Terry and do a spin off.    I wish Scifi would consider a mini series or made for TV movie to tie up all the unfulfilled issues of the show.

[OrangeWolf]

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.

[fyrefay52]

Dear Everyone,
I am very sorry the series is no longer on the air.  I got to see it via YouTube, circumstances making it difficult to see the shows as they aired. I think the science fiction channel made a mistake in canceling the series.  They didn't even give it a proper chance.
For which I give them a resounding BOO.
I am comforted with the books, but I really hope that Jim and Mr. Wolfe will at least try for a miniseries or a film based on the books.  It would be wonderful. 
Thanks for listening, and have a wonderful day.
Peace,
Tina

[desolo]

I caught the episodes out of order online.  It was ok, but just enough off (a hokey stick for a staf, drumstick for a wand/blasting rod.. WTF?) that I had some trouble getting into it beyond watching it on the laptop while gaming.

I can though, trace an obsession, I've developed, with trying to lay hands on a vintage Jeep for my next car, directly to the show..

Really I feel that the complexity and depth of The Dresden Files really merits being done as an animated series.

[ImmortalPolka]

I saw the show long before I read the books, and loved it.

I can understand some of the changes made given the circumstances. Using elements more "relatable" to the average viewer was, I'd guess, an attempt not to scare away viewers who might look down on anything with too much of a D&D feel. With the success of things like the Lord of the Rings movies and the continued success of the Harry Potter franchise, it would probably be easier to try and resist compromises like that these days. "Try" being the operative word here.

[owlbeen]

Saw the show, fell in love, then went and bought a good deal of the books. (I'm still not caught all the way up yet, but that's college for you...)

It's, hands-down, one of my favorite shows. I rewatch the DVDs often enough that even my non-obsessed roommate can quote whole stretches of dialogue. Nothing disappoints me more than that it didn't continue. I enjoyed the Rockford Files-ness of it all, the absolutely superb acting talent, and the beautiful sets. Everything about the show felt right -- maybe it wasn't all in-line with the books, but within the show, itself, it was aces.

Still, there's the huge sense of... wanting? ...that remains. A whole lot was left unsaid. I sincerely hope that the TV-verse storylines will be resolved someday.

[Darkling]

Still, there's the huge sense of... wanting? ...that remains. A whole lot was left unsaid. I sincerely hope that the TV-verse storylines will be resolved someday.

I know exactly what you mean.  Certain storylines felt unresolved and Robert Wolfe broke his promise to us long ago that if it didn't continue he would reveal those stories to us.

[ironbent]

Hi all...

The shows, recently rented on Netflix (don't want no t.v. in my house), got me into the books. The books are waaaay better than the shows.