[Harry Lime]

Finishing up watching Legend of the Seeker, which was cancelled after two seasons, right before GOT was released. This is a very frustrating series to watch, if you have read the Sword of Truth books.

Sam Raimi was the reason that this was put on the air in the first place, and good for him for pushing it into being, at a time when fantasy was not a popular genre. However, his Xena style of storytelling didn't do the series any favours. When the lore and serialized parts of the series shone through, it was very good. The Raimi action, and monster of the week episodes didn't really connect. A part of this was also the time differential, which GOT nailed in the first 5 seasons. If someone has to walk 40 leagues, it's going to take them freaking forever. That bothered me every episode.

The good.... The casting was spot on. They did everything that they could with the material, and all of the core cast hit the mark on character development right out of the gates. It's too bad that they were not given the dark side of the story to chew on.

Also, it's actually a very good story to tell. Goodkind started his series strongly, and by the end of the books stretched out the narrative unnecessarily, but in all it was very enjoyable. Goodkind got preachy at the end, and spent one book chattering like a Southern Baptist preacher. The last four books would have to be pared down to two, exorcising the worst tendencies of Goodkind, but a TV series could do that without difficulty. This series and it's cancellation was such a lost opportunity.

This deserves a re-boot, but I don't think that will ever happen. We are left with this artifact.

Worth watching? Yes. It's entertaining, and the performances are all good. They touch on the more riske elements of the book, which are then PGed and Raimied. It's really an odd little specimen.

Edit : I decided to go back and read the book where the tv series left off, and my opinion has changed somewhat. Terry Goodkind is a decent writer, and created an interesting story and world, but is a #### human being. His main character is a Mary Sue who is never wrong and bullies everyone he meets, and the treatment of women in this book is deplorable. I read this when I was younger and apparently pretty stupid, but now I can't get over what a ###### Goodkind must be IRL.