I decided to do something different for this month’s column. I’ve put together a video review of The SyFy show The Magicians! There are a couple spoilers for Season One, but nothing that would ruin your enjoyment of the show. Just be advised 🙂
A note on tech: Your best experience with this video may be with headphones. Do make sure the volume is up on your device. So with that note, here we go!
[vimeo 202551676 w=640 h=480]
You can catch Season One of The Magicians on Netflix and then go straight into Season Two, which is airing now on SyFy on Wednesday nights at 9pm Eastern time!
What do you think of The Magicians? Or of the idea of video blogs on SpecChic? Share with us in the comments!
All still images from the show are courtesy of SyFy.
An excellent review! I wish I’d seen this before watching the first season. My wife read the first book and disliked it—unappealing characters, and a genre novel masquerading as ‘literary fiction.’ I didn’t read the book, but was intrigued at the first couple episodes. (Couldn’t help but think of Seton Hill at the grad school aspect of it.)
My interest did wander as the plot seemed to drift here and there, but I wonder if I’d have enjoyed it more if I’d had the book background to fill in the blanks. (Every time I made a confused comment my wife said “Well, in the book…” to explain it. She gave up watching after two episodes.) I finished the season in something of a rush and decided not to watch season two. I did watch the first season two episode but quit about halfway through. You really have to pay attention in this series (or perhaps read the book) to appreciate and understand what’s going on, otherwise it seems very random.
Loved your comments on derivative works and agree on the adultyness of this show. I like how it fluctuated between whimsy and reality—sort of like Harry Potter meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If I have time, I may go back and re-watch season one and make sure I don’t have the internet, cats, or politics to distract me.
Interesting comments. Neither my husband nor I have read the books, but neither one of us had any problem following along. That said, neither one of us had the internet, cats, or politics to distract us (nor someone else telling us how different it was in the books).
We haven’t started season two yet, so I’m not going to read the following comments, but we do plan on continuing the series, as unlike Venessa, we have had a break. 🙂
Hey Ron! Thanks so much for the comment!
At times, it did feel like they were trying to cram a bunch of stuff into the season. But I can forgive a lot of things in a first season, because it usually takes a good portion of the those episodes for a show to get its footing.
*Warning: small spoilers below*
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I’m a little disappointed by the second season. Because I binge watched season 1 and then went straight into season 2, there was no pause for me. And in the first episode of season 2, the characters seemed different. Not dramatically, but, for example, Elliot seemed a lot less posh and sophisticated. And Quentin seemed more bumble headed. And Margo was way more of a b*tch and less likable. Every character seemed slightly different than season 1 and their group dynamics had a different quality. I wonder if it’s because the actors were on hiatus and sort of lost touch with the characters they had created.
All in all, I’m a little less in love with the series in season 2, so far, which makes me sad 🙁