Television Review: The Magicians (Season 1, 2015)
Among the masses of authors, screenwriters and producers who, each in their own way, had attempted to exploit the global popularity of Harry Potter, was also journalist Lev Grossman, who came up with a very simple idea. He concluded that there was no need to reinvent the wheel and veer too far from the Harry Potter formula – a story about magic set in an educational institution environment. Instead, as a fairly effective variation on the theme, it could be that instead of children and teenagers, the protagonists are young men and women attending university. This also meant that the protagonists were, at least nominally, adults, so his novel The Magicians from 2007 could deal with adult themes and an approach that assumed an adult readership, which, of course, meant primarily the explicit use of "improper" vocabulary, detailed descriptions of violence, sex, and self-destruction by alcohol, drugs and similar activities characteristic of a throng of youngsters who suddenly found themselves outside parental supervision. The novel achieved enough success to bring the obligatory trilogy, as well as bid fgor adaptation, which in 2015 became reality thanks to the TV channel SyFy, airing until 2020.
The protagonist, played by Jason Ralph, is Quentin Coldwater, a young New Yorker who spent the majority of his life as a fanatical devotee of popular fantasy novels about the magical land of Fillory, a passion he shares with his best friend Julia Wicker (played by Stella Maeve). Over the years Quentin developed an exceptional skill at performing magic tricks, so he is all the more surprised when it turns out he has an additional talent for the ability to create real magic, and even more surprised when it turns out that Fillory is real. He has to face all of this after he receives an invitation for the entrance exam to the elite magical school Brakebills together with Julia. There he will be accepted, and Julia rejected and forced to learn magical skills in the New York underground. Quentin, on the other hand, meets several interesting colleagues at Brakebills – bisexual hedonist Elliot Waugh (played by Hale Appleman) and his friend Margo (played by Summer Bishil) who like him, and William Adiode (played by Arjun Gupta) who sees him as a rival. He, in turn, is intrigued by the nerd Alice Quinn (played by Olivia Taylor Dudley) who enrolled at Brakebills for rather personal reasons. A mysterious monster that attacks students will complicate their lives.
The first episodes of The Magicians will show that the creators may have found inspiration in Harry Potter, but they had no intention of competing with the work of J.K. Rowling. And it can be said that it was out of their financial ability to do so. It is hard to imagine that The Magicians would have managed to make it to a fifth season if they were going to spend it on CGI and creating visually attractive scenes. Although it uses special effects, most of the plot takes place indoors, whether it is the prosaic classrooms and hallways of Brakebills or the even more prosaic rooms and dark streets of New York, which could easily serve as the setting for a much cheaper and genre-appropriate pure drama series. The Magicians tries to compensate for all this by creating quite an interesting story and characters, and they succeed, although they are played by actors who in some cases look like they fell out of Aaron Spelling-style teen soap operas, which can particularly be said for Arjun Gupta and for the New York magical semi-circle which includes, at times too glamorous, Maeve. The impression is somewhat saved by the uncharismatic Ralph, who plays a geeky, frustrated character with which an average viewer can identify much more easily, just as it is somehow more understandable that his ideal partner could be the character played by Dudley, whose looks in the series the producers intentionally made unattractive.
The series' biggest advantage, however, is dark humour, i.e., quite a fun comparison of the "innocent" and "clean" Potter with protagonists whose lives are dominated by sex and some rather unhealthy habits. On the other hand, extreme fluctuations in quality between episodes can also be noticed, which especially comes to the fore when comparing the first episode whose soundtrack is dominated by "epic" music, and the finale, which sounds too much like low-budget television mainstream. Scenes that take place in Fillory also represent a kind of disappointment, especially when compared to Lewis's Narnia which was Grossman's obvious model. Despite everything, The Magicians in its first 13 episodes retains enough quality and freshness to be recommended to Potter fans, at least those who are adults.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
(Note: The text in the original version is available here.)
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