Legend of the Seeker

[SekoETC]

I've been planning to download this series with Bittorrent since it's not airing in my country and I don't even have a TV, but those of you who have been watching it, is it worth watching? I've been reading the books and I wouldn't want to be disappointed.

[Dudel]

Dudel says: "Meh... It's okay. But I get so much fantasy stuff cramed down that it all begins to blur. Same with Sci-Fi."

[Rebma]

I like it Seko. Its interesting enough to make me put down my laptop, but I haven't read the books, so I'm not sure how it compares.

I've also missed a few episodes, which I'm sad about and for some reason didn't consider bittorrent.

[SekoETC]

Okay, today I downloaded parts 1-2 (apparently the pilot counts as two episodes) and 3. I watched the pilot and it was pretty funny and got me shouting things like oh shit, there's a blood gar and oh shit, a forest fire! But they've changed some aspects of the plot and I'm not quite sure if it's a good thing. In the book Kahlan's sister died earlier and it was a nasty slow death. Also Richard studied the Book of Counted Shadows when he was a boy and didn't just get it all of a sudden.

When Richard is fighting with his sword, I think he's swinging too widely, leaving himself unprotected, but then again, he's new with it so maybe he'll learn to be more careful in the future. Also I was thinking that it would help his concentration a lot if Kahlan wasn't displaying so much cleavage. Also Kahlan and Richard hugged twice. I think in the book they were much more reserved in the beginning. And during one of the scenes with Darken Rahl, I think I saw a Mord-Sith and she was wearing a skirt? O_o You'd think leather pants were more suitable.

[Dudel]

I'm almost certain that I'm the target Demo Seko not you. Hence the mini skirt... still didn't make me wan't to watch another episode.

About the pilot being 2 episodes, it was an hour long so thus two episodes.

[SekoETC]

There have been no mini skirts, only long skirts. But plenty of cleavage, yeah.

My reviews of three episodes following the pilot (contains spoilers).

Episode 3: There were bounty hunters and a guy who makes magical maps that can be used to track a person. When I saw the map press with shining light coming out of it, I thought aw gee, a commoner using magic? Blah. Then there was a woman asking for help in finding her brother who was taken by a monster and I thought well, I bet she's the monster, it might very well be a shape-shifter since not much is known about it. I was waiting for her to turn on them any minute and when she did, I wasn't surprised. But turns out she wasn't the monster, she was just trying to trap Richard so that she could sell him to the D'Harans and get them to release her little brother, the guy they had shown getting caught in the beginning of the episode. This is a pretty commonly used scenario, someone betraying the hero in order to save a relative. But when two bounty hunters came after Richard and the traitor turned them against each other, that caught me by surprise. That was a good turn of the plot. Then they used a magic map to trick the D'Haran soldiers into the monster's cave. But it was pretty cruel that Zedd made the cave entrance collapse and trapped them inside with the monster. Somehow it's different killing enemies in a sword fight than through trickery. Overall a pretty mediocre episode.
In the beginning of the episode, Zedd torched a whole rabbit using wizard's fire. It was pretty funny but still awfully stupid. Why play with food when they haven't eaten in a while? Zedd doesn't like to go hungry in the books. That was just a cheap joke that goes against his character, well, the character he is in the books. In the TV series they're establishing him as a careless jerk.

Episode 4: Richard goes hunting with a couple of guys while Kahlan is settling people's disputes and Zedd is meeting an old flame. I don't remember if Confessors were able to sense the truth without using their power on a person in the book. It might seem reasonable but I think it's not very good that the series is showing the Confessor's power only being used on hostile people when it was originally designed to find out if a suspected criminal was lying. It should be established that the person who is touched by the power isn't necessarily always evil, but once the power has been released on them, the effect is irreversible and even if it was discovered that the person was innocent, there's no way of restoring his free will.
They were suggesting that Zedd had accidentally gotten a woman pregnant in the past. Somehow it felt wrong to think that he would've been having sex with some woman, then walked out of her life and started shouting at her when she claims that he's the father of her son. In the books Zedd often thinks about his wife even though she died a very long time ago. Later he has a relationship with Adie, it strange relationship but still they respect and support each other. Zedd may be occasionally annoying in the books but he's not a dirtbag. When Kahlan asks Zedd if he ever forgot to use protection, and he says he won't tell in front of the old girlfriend, and then later it's revealed that he didn't forget to use protection with this woman, it creates a clear impression that he did forget with somebody. And in that point I couldn't know if the TV series would stay true to the books in that Zedd is Richard's grandfather. I started thinking, what if they changed it so that Zedd was in fact Richard's father and had a little accident with this woman in Brennidon? In the end it's revealed that he is Richard's grandfather after all but still, it would not do justice to Zedd's daughter if she was made accidentally and if her parents weren't married.
Most of the episode consists of Richard going to Brennidon to find his parents and runs into a middle-aged woman. My first thought was, well this must be the midwife. But when Richard asks her if she is his mother, and she says yes, it filled me with awful uncertainty, could they have changed his parentage so completely? It's bad enough that they're totally copying the kindercide of Bethlehem from the Bible when Richard's background story in the books is much more original. It just wouldn't do if Richard's mother was just some plain looking commoner who was living a normal life in some small town (even if it was occupied by D'Harans). Finally the truth is revealed and I can sigh with relief thinking maybe they didn't mess things up after all.
Also Zedd is using wizard's fire very carelessly (again). In the books wizard's fire is like napalm, when it sticks to something then it burns to the bone. But when Richard is captured by the D'Harans and they're about to execute him, he has Zedd burn through the ropes that bind his hands. He couldn't have done that without burning Richard's hands.

Episode 5. There is a boy who can read people's minds and Richard, Kahlan and Zedd see him get sold to the D'Harans. Zedd puts on an illusion of being another wizard and joins the group of soldiers while Richard and Kahlan save the kid. But the kid is totally obnoxious. That's pretty damn hilarious actually. Richard is really having a hard time tolerating him and goes as far as starting to tie the kid's wrists. I hate it when heroes are too nice to kids who don't deserve it so Richard is acting very practical there. But Kahlan gets all disturbed by it and tells him not to. Later it's revealed that Kahlan's father stopped being affected by the Confessor's power after his wife died and started telling Kahlan and her sister to do things for him or he'd tie their hands. That's totally different from the books. Confessor's power should be irreversible, as I previously mentioned. I can't believe they changed that aspect. Seriously, a lot of the tension in the first book comes from Richard realizing that a Confessor can't stop herself from releasing her power on a man she has sex with, and that when she takes someone with her power, the victim's personality is lost forever. If he thinks that you can just snap out of it, at least after the Confessor dies, it's not tough enough. The script writers are taking the edge off and that's bad. I loved most of this episode but that detail was awful. Also there are Sisters of Light living in the Midlands? In the books they were all in the Old World, some might come across the boundary to search for boys with the gift but they certainly weren't settling in great numbers.

[Dudel]

Seems like you were not too impresed there Seko. I did not even watch the first episode all the way through because I wanted to do something that was actually entertaining.

[SekoETC]

Quite obviously the makers of the series haven't quite decided what they want. They're not staying true to the books but they're not truly being original either. They're borrowing a lot of names from the books when they should be borrowing the themes, that's what the books are all about, the philosophy, not the world or the creatures. The TV producers don't seem to understand it. I think it has shown signs of improvement so I'm willing to see where it goes.

[SekoETC]

Finally, episode 8, Denna. This was a very emotional episode and they did it well.

Contains spoilers:

I didn't like the side plot with a Confessor that had turned a whole village to be her servants but it brings up a good moral question. Also it showed how a Confessor's hold on her "victims" breaks when she dies. It's not in line with the books but goes to demonstrate the rules of the TV universe. Richard killed Denna in the end but she was brought back to life. I hope that she will later die like in the book.

[ceselb]

Didn't realize this had been released yet, will check it out. Have read all of the books, but I have a hard time seeing how it can be as good as that. I just hope it can be good enough for partial suspension of disbelief.
For example hte Harry Dresden tv series was quite good in my opinion, but not really the same as the books. Two separate entities sort of.

[SekoETC]

Generally people who have read the books tend to be quite critical of the TV series but if you look at them separately and don't cling to the differences, the TV series can be quite enjoyable. It does have it's weak parts, for example Zedd's constant overacting, but that's just my opinion.

[rklenseth]

Don't know if this helps but you can get it for free and legal from www.hulu.com . Here is a direct link...

http://www.hulu.com/videos/search?query ... the+Seeker

[Piscator]

Seems only to work inside the US.

[rklenseth]

Maybe you need a certain codec to get it to work. Or is the site denying access to you guys?

[Piscator]

Well, it says that you have to be in the US to access the services. No idea if there's a work-around of some kind.