I finally got around to watcing this. I did read the books back in the 90s until I finally had my fill of them around book 5 or 6. I don't remember exactly where I stopped.
The first of the series, Wizard's First Rule, was pretty good and original enough at its time. It was also not planned as a series, and the author had a helluva lot of uncomfortbale retconning to do after the first novel to make it into a series.
Unfortunately, Goodkind got increasingly derivative of Jordan in the balance of the series, and the recurring plot devices of dividing Richard and Kahlan in some fashion while somehow putting Zed out of commission (so he didn't do Richard's task for him) put me off until I lost interest. It was also obvious that the man didn't write with an outline and that he was more or less making it up as he went along, novel-to-novel.
In complicated fat fantasy fiction, you can't get away with that approach for long until the inconsistencies break the tale or, at the least, the setting.
Okay. That's the books. But that's rushing to the end of a very long tale. The series is new and is not (yet) being crushed under any of that weight; moreover, the screenplay writers have the benefit of something that Goodkind never had - an outline of where this is all going. So the series writers can avoid those pitfalls, if they care to try.
The series is principally concerned with the first novel, which, to be fair, is a very decent stand alone tale.
Episodes 1 and 2 had remarkably decent production values for a Fantasy TV series. For a movie? No. For a HBO style miniseries? No, not really.
But for syndicated TV? Hell yes. I'm there.
It's been quite a while since I read the series in general and Wizards' First Rule in particular. I am certain they are breaking up the plot here and there and rewriting things to suit the pacing of TV.
But for all that - it was enjoyable enough and worth watching. It's not like it costs a $10 admission fee.
This one is worth my time. Your time? That's up to you.