As a general rule, I tend to think that all novels => "visual media" are bad ideas. I usually run into the problem of disagreeing with the director's/writer's/actor's/whatever's visual ideal of the universe because - like all readers - I have very specific images in my head as to what things should look like [and what the characters look/think/feel/speak]. So when it was announced that there was going to be a TV production created based upon Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series, I felt some understandable trepidation about the whole affair.
However, there was some hope. This wasn't going to be some hackneyed book to film production (because seriously, raise of hands, who thinks you could put the entirety of the "Sword of Truth" into a movie - even just the first book. Yeah...exactly), rather it was going to be syndicated into a full season of television - complete with hour long episodes! And, to top the whole thing off, Sam Raimi was going to be in charge of it.
Now, for those of you too young to remember the "good old days" and think Sam Raimi is only the guy who did Spiderman then you need a short history lesson. To me, Sam Raimi is far more famous for everything else he did (because I'm fairly certain I'm in the very small minority of people who were largely unimpressed with the Spiderman movies - possibly because I never thought Spiderman was the "bee's knees" to start with, but I digress). This is the man responsible for things like The Evil Dead movies (parts 1, 2 and 3!), and such fantastic TV series as: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys; Xena: Warrior Princess; Briscoe County Jr.; all of which I count among my favorite shows (perhaps not of all time, but still, they're up there).
With all that in mind, I can say that my expectations were suddenly quite a bit higher for this series. Perhaps there would be hope. Perhaps one of my favorite book series wouldn't look like crap and would survive, and maybe even flourish (into 11 seasons perhaps?????) in a world that normally butchered books into nothingness (Lord of the Rings excluded - but then again, it's the exception).
Generally speaking I didn't really look too much into this series as it got closer to release. I caught a couple interviews here or there online, watched the trailer and then found out when/where it was going to be released, and that was about it. I didn't really know who was cast for which parts beyond the part of Kahlan, and I think that was for the best [that I didn't know what was going on]. So the show finally aired, and after watching through the 2-hour premier I have a few thoughts on the matter.
I suppose I'll start at the top and cover the visual aspect. Because the look and feel are extremely important to any series, if you can't get this right you may as well just stop now. As far as this series is concerned I feel confident in saying they pretty much got it covered. It's pretty common knowledge by now that New Zealand can safely be used for pretty much any fantasy setting anywhere and be covered, as such it was pretty hard to fail, at least, the setting here. This moves us into the next big aspect of visuals: the actors.
Picking the right actor for something like this has got to be a casting director's worst nightmare. They're essentially coming into something that already has fairly established ideas in terms of character appearance. Not only from descriptions that the author uses but from things like book covers and any art the author may have had commissioned for his work. So going with the wrong actor could potentially ruin the series for long time fans...and to a lesser extent potentially sour the experience for new comers.
In this case I can safely say that, so far, the choice in actors has been fairly well done. Richard fits his role - at least in terms of behavior and temperament - quite well. Personally I envisioned somebody of a larger stature both in terms of height and physique, but I feel their choice works well.
Kahlan on the other hand is perfect. I don't know where they found the actress portraying her, but the woman is gorgeous, and with all the gushing on that Goodkind goes regarding her appearance, they nailed it with her.
Zedd is a bit of a mixed bag. Again, in terms of temperament and personality he was fell placed, but appearance...he doesn't seem "wizardy" enough, if that makes any sense. Sure he's got the white hair (because he's old) and a bit of a "weirdness" about him (cuz Zedd's pretty out there really), it's just...well I'm sorry to say but Ian McKellan has ruined the role of wizards in every movie or TV series ever because honestly he's turned into the iconic wizard...and Zedd was always just described as really old, and sadly this actor just doesn't look old "enough". But really that's just a minor complaint, and while I may dwell on it, do not think I feel he was a bad choice, because so far he fits Zedd. Appearances aside, I feel it was a good choice.
The rest are really all just minor characters so far. Darken Rahl…while shown, it's too hard to really get a feel for him. I don't think the actor they have in there is really the best choice there, he's just too young and nowhere near imposing enough for the role, but again, my opinion may change beyond my impressions of him based upon only a few scant minutes of screen presence.
Chase is the man. That is all.
Moving beyond the visual aspect I'll shuffle on over into the storyline aspect. Now I'm really going to try hard not to hold the series responsible for the changes that MUST be made to make things work. It's quite simple to explain something in a novel where you're essentially limited only by your imagination, it's entirely another to get some exposition out in just a few minutes when you really only have 40 minutes to get the point across, so generally speaking I'll probably be "OK" with the show as long as it doesn't screw things up "really really bad" (I'm looking at you Harry Potter movies 4 and 5, seriously WTF happened there).
That said I really only have complaints - so far - with what they're kind of "skating over" in terms of the story. In the book I had a very clear idea of what it meant to be The Seeker and what the Sword of Truth really could do. Here, however, I really don't have a clue and I worry what the casual viewer might think. The first 5 books kind of blurred around in terms of event in my memory so I might be confused on a few points but Richard really didn't become bad ass until around book 3 or 4. I vaguely remember Richard being able to become more potent with the sword when he was feeling his "righteous anger" - which gave the Seeker power and consequently was able to channel the sword and draw upon the previous Seekers and their power and use it to fight...but I don't remember him becoming bad ass with the sword that early on - again, I thought that was later. But again, that's more of a minor point because I'm talking about things that most viewers won't see this early on. But what I'm more complaining about is how all of a sudden Richard could kill all these people without there being much of an explanation of how. Sure Zedd explained that he could draw on the previous Seekers' powers but it wasn't said "how"
I'm probably complaining over nothing, maybe it's more I "expected" a certain explanation to be given, and when it wasn't I immediately dismissed the explanation that was, who knows. My point is, however, that this whole thing could have been done a lot better. I'm hoping we'll have more explained to us further on as the series progresses - especially since Zedd seems to be hanging out with Kahlan and Richard thus far as they venture into D'Hara. I'm fairly certain Zedd was left behind with Addie in the book, but it makes far more sense for him to tag along early on because he can essentially be our "narrator" and explain things. Much of this was explained already in the book at this point, but oh well; when you're going for a long over-reaching storyline you have to change a few things otherwise people would be bored to tears for the first few episodes because it would all be exposition. While this works fine in books, you'll never see it work in a TV series. So I don't really take issue to that choice.
***SPOILER ALERT***
Ok, we need to talk about the Book of Counted Shadows here. In the book, a copy of this was brought with Richard when he was young and given to the Ciphers. Richard's father made him memorize this book word for word and then burn it, thus what happens at the end makes a whole heck of a lot more sense. What they're doing now with the book however just leaves me scratching my head. Richard glanced at the first page...and then burned it...
Did he read it some other time or something? Maybe he looked at it while they were camping out? Who knows, but it's going to be a bit of a sticking point until more is said.
One more minor quibble here: Zedd created the boundaries that sealed off D'Hara from the Westland, in the series they keep going on about the boundary having been there for hundreds of years. Zedd's not THAT old here people, and by taking that away from him, he seems somehow diminished. Zedd is an extremely powerful wizard - he's the first wizard after all - and you just took away from his awesomeness.
I'm hoping somehow they'll go back and mention how it really hasn't been there for hundreds of years or something, because I really don't like that change.
***END SPOILER ALERT***
As with books, with any new TV series the following question must always be asked: Is it interesting enough to keep watching?
I'm biased; the answer to this question was "yes" even before the show aired. The only thing that was going to keep me from watching was if they totally butchered it, and seeing as that they have not, I have every intention of seeing this through to the end.
And as for the casual viewer? I believe enough is put here in the opener to whet the appetite of any new comer and entice them along for at least several more episodes. It will be interesting to see if the show can maintain this level of interest, I'm hoping yes, I know Raimi's backward in TV and have every confidence that he'll see this through to the end.
If I were to give this an arbitrary rating, I'd give it a C, for Chase, because Chase if fucking badass. However, in terms of more realistic numbers, I'd give it probably an 8/10.
But that's just my 2¢.
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