Hulu might have done me a great disservice, making so much TV so readily available. I have to believe that the only reason that I watched an entire season of a Saturday afternoon syndicated series is that it was all there right in front of me with just the click of the mouse. Otherwise I might have to do some soul searching.
I might have to do that anyway, because I immensely enjoyed Legend of the Seeker.
There is nothing terribly ground breaking about this show. The adventures of Richard, (the first true Seeker in a thousand years) Kalin (the Confessor pledged to protect him) and Zed (the Wizard guiding him) employ most of the tenants of fantasy/hero-quest stories: the emergence of a hero who didn’t know he was one; love that cannot be express because it will be a detriment to the greater good; a villain attempting world-domination; wise-cracking side-kicks/friends; detours due to mistaken identities, lost weapons, temporary capture, double-crosses, prophecies, spells and enchantments; and random people with all kinds of special powers.
Even though you can guess what will happen next (and might occasionally be thinking that you have seen the same thing a million times already), and most of the dialogue is slightly ridiculous, there is an infectious zeal in the show. You want sweet and noble (but not smug or goody-two-shoes-boring) Richard to vanquish the almost cartoonishly villainous Darkn Rahl with the Sword of Truth. You kind of can’t help laughing along with Zed’s bad jokes. Kalin’s semi-angsty intensity can get a bit irritating, but she makes up for it by being all knife-wieldy and having the ability of mass murdering with her mind (but yes, she is one of the good guys). Without the perceived and highly debatable metaphysical depth of something like Lord of the Rings or The Wheel of Time, this show is freed from any self-importance or weighty “mythology.” Therefore the viewer is given a chance to enjoy fast-paced and funny little stories interspersed with decently choreographed fight scenes, without being bored by pedantic metaphor.
I have to admit that I found the final episode of the season a bit anti-climactic. Sometimes that is the way of things; is the epic battle ever really all that epic? Granting that, I was still a bit disappointed, and am hoping that they do something really cool in the coming season to make up for it.
Okay, planning to watch the upcoming season means it is definitely time for some soul-searching.
The TV Girl
Making the world a better place, one show at a time.
- The TV Girl
- Washington, DC, United States
- I guess you would like to know a little bit about the person making all these proclamations upon good taste and horrid characters. I'm Andrea and when I was 15 I fell in love. An hour after meeting "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" I was forever altered in the way only love can, and I never questioned for one minute afterwards that television offered me an amazing chance to experience lives and moments that I could never imagine. So now, when I'm not getting distracted by my real life, I write about TV. I also read, am finishing a Master's degree in English Literature, travel, am attempting to learn vegan cooking, am the 5th of 6 children, and drive my roommate nuts by constantly cleaning our already clean apartment. Now that we're old friends, time for you to take my opinions as the be all and end all.
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