SyFy: a new hope, or...

Looks like SyFy may actually be interested in reconnecting with its core audience of fans of Genre Fiction.

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/enterta...tm_campaign=feed_entertainment_desktop&ref=OB

I don't know the book series in question beyond what I read of it on Wiki, but it could be good if done right. And if they DO do a good job with it, that could open up the doors for other stuff.

I would personally like to see SyFy- or maybe Chiller or Fear.net do a Mythos-based series.

Welp ... I LOVE the Magicians and its sequel, but it's not what I think that article makes it out to be.

Just like the previous "Harry Potter for adults," Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (which I also love), it's a literary story more than an adventure one. The first novel is basically a great coming of age tale, looking at the changes one goes through in college and the difficulty of finding oneself a fulfilling role in the years after college. I'm still in the middle of the second one, but so far, it's about the lack of fulfillment in adult life, when you've achieved all you're supposed to have dreamed of.

It's not a novel of high adventure and outsized feelings, but quiet inner struggle and disappointment.

Even the novel's counterpart to Quidditch, Welters, is self-consciously (the books are very aware of Harry Potter and the characters make lots of wry jokes about it) even more impenetrable and a lot less interesting, sort of a magical shuffleboard that most of the characters have trouble understanding.

The school of magic is explicitly modeled on the American prep schools of the elite and the post-grad life of mainstream magical society is based on 1 percenter douchebags. Paris Hilton, if she was a bit less publicity-hungry, would fit in well with the Brakebills crowd after graduation.

Honestly, while I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with this, it's the kind of property I'd feel much more comfortable with, say, an indie filmmaker tackling, whether for the big screen or the small.

I'd love to see Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell done up for TV, too, if only as a miniseries.

Dannyalcatraz said:

I'd love to see Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell done up for TV, too, if only as a miniseries.

Click to expand...

Me too, but on AMC or HBO, somewhere that "and then a bunch of Masterpiece Theatre folks argue about metaphysics for another three hours, followed by some people hanging around the fringes of the Napoleonic War" wouldn't immediately get them the axe.

Same thing with The Magicians: This needs a mopey Garden State-style soundtrack and lots of sad gray light. I don't trust SyFy to do that. I have visions of them giving it the Tales from Earthsea treatment to "jazz it up." If they want an exciting urban fantasy, let them revive the Dresden Files.

as long as it's not another ghost hunting reality show