I have to say a proper goodbye to this cheesy and amazing show, and while it was not the most painful of untimely deaths in 2010 (that honor goes to Terriers), I'm really quite unhappy about it. (For a while I avoided watching the last couple episodes because I knew that was all I was getting and I knew it wouldn't be enough.)
First of all, how does a Saturday syndicated fantasy show get cancelled? Wasn't Xena on for like a million years? Isn't Kevin Sorbo wielding terrible dialog somewhere out there as I speak? So what's the deal? I thought the whole point was that this type of show could run forever, entertaining geeks and the hungover without interruption. Why are we fans deprived of the spiffy adventures of Richard, Kahlan, Zed, and Cara?
I will never have a (satisfactory) answer to my query, and so be it. That's the way it goes sometimes.
But what a second season we had!
I'm not saying that anyone should really try and follow the logic of this show. You'd need a huge white board and a rainbow of colored markers to keep track of: what magic does or does not work on which people; whose dead, whose only thought to be dead, whose alive and then very quickly killed off; which back-story was correct, which got rewritten, which got re-rewritten; which set of people were good, which were evil; what town was besieged, what town was besieged but saved, and so on and so on. The episode "Creator" was kind of like a mini mid-S2 round up, like a highlights clip show, and that kind of helped. But comprehensibility wasn't exactly the point of Legend of the Seeker. The point was the triumph of good over evil through crazy sword battles, magic, and love: the ridiculous-ness was part of the fun. In utterly improbable ways over-the-top-cheesy villains met their match no matter what the odds, be it disease ridden hordes from hell or entire brigades of revenge-bent soldiers or single-minded mummy or insanity inducing sand, because the Seeker, the Mother Confessor, the Wizard of the First Order, and the Mord Sith are the sharp-object-brandishing messengers of right and truth. Damn it.
And in the spirit of completely ridiculous and total awesome: Richard and Kahlan's love can literally defeat Death and heal the veil between the world of the living and the underworld? I'm not always the biggest cheerleader for Richard and Kahlan, they are sometimes a bit to earnest for me and I adore Cara (but more on that later), but I have to admit that as sappy as it was, Kahlan's grief over stabbing Richard in the heart (which was amazing!) producing another Stone of Tears was a wonderful ending, very much in line with the tenor of this show. The world was set to right, Richard and Kahlan's abstinence-based relationship continues, Zed got to be proud of his grandson, and though a new threat loomed unforeseen in the background, all was well!
Except.
What I really want is a resolution for Cara. Cara turned out to be a great character: she was moody, hostile, sarcastic, prone to violence, unapologetic and at the same time loyal, defiant, resourceful, courageous, ardent. And it was so obvious that there was more of a story for her. The two last episodes, which proposed an alternative universe in which Cara had never become Mord Sith showed just how important she was. I guess it is a matter of debate if she could have been a genuine competitor for Richard's affections, it was like that was always there as a possibility (Cara at one point says she loves Richard, and Richard always always defends Cara), but really the show never got around to it. I think Richard and Cara would have been a great couple, but regardless, no chick that bad-ass should be relegated to a sidekick (and woe unto anyone who called her so), but that is kind of the impression the viewer is left with. It's just such a shame.
I know that of all the people I know, no one will really love this show the way KP and I do. It was silly and fun, and kind of like a Saturday morning cartoon for grown-ups. So thanks Legend of the Seeker for your labyrinthine plots, your endless supply of outrageous characters, your heartfelt dialog, and all the general merriment you gave us.
The TV Girl
Making the world a better place, one show at a time.
- The TV Girl
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- 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.
1 comment:
AHHHH!!! This post made my day. Possibly my year!! And you are right, noone will ever love this show as much as we do.
Seriously, how awesome and cheese-tastic was that moment when Kahlan's tears formed a new stone?!?! "So profound was her grief, that it took shape," to quote the Creator. And honestly, they had so much fodder for a Season 3...now that Kahlan and Richard could consummate their relationship, would that get in the way of their duties? And they could have really played up the Cara/Richard relationship and sent Kahlan back to Aydindril. The possibilities are endless and now we'll never know.
My thought is that the show could have run on for a while longer even though viewership was down but since they were shooting in New Zealand, production was probably too expensive.
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