Adam Lenhardt
Senior HTF Member
As I heard about the developments regarding this series, I didn't have any interest, dismissing it as Harry Potter for the underwear model set. But tonight I found myself unable to sleep, and the first episode was available for free on Vudu ahead of its premiere the next day (Monday), so I decided to give it a shot.
I ended up being really blown away. Based on the series of books by Lev Grossman, the story centers around Quentin Coldwater and Julia Wicker, childhood friends that were obsessed with fantasy growing up, particularly a five-book Narnia-esque series called "Fillory and Further". Now, recent college graduates, they are preparing for grad school.
Julia has already been admitted to Yale, and her life is fully on track. She has left their childhood imaginings behind her.
Quentin, an amateur slight-of-hand artist, can't bring himself to leave their childhood imaginings behind him, and it's destroying his life. We meet him at his exit interview from the psychiatric facility he had checked himself into. His explanation for his depression is one of the more potent metaphors I've encountered for the often rough transition from childhood into adulthood.
Things take a turn when they show up for his graduate admissions interview to find the interviewer dead and the home in which the interview was to be conducted eerily mirrors the illustrations from his Fillory and Further first edition. Shortly thereafter, Quentin and Julia separately find themselves plucked out of their ordinary lives and given a shot at the Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy's graduate program. Brakebills is located vaguely in upstate New York and can best be described as reality-adjacent.
From there the plot takes a number of twists and turns that I did not see coming.
The showrunners are John McNamara ("Lois & Clark", the short-lived cult favorite "Profit", "Jericho", NBC's "Aquarius") and Sera Gamble ("Supernatural"). The writing is much better than Syfy's average. I haven't followed every series the channel has done, but it's definitely the best written I've watched on the channel since the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica".
The producing director is Mike Cahill, best known for his big screen collaborations with Brit Marling, Another Earth and I Origins. The look and feel of his pilot is very distinctive; there are three worlds presented in this episode, and each has its own distinctive look and feel. The production design is fairly simple but also distinctive and effective. The pilot was filmed in New Orleans, but production shifted to Vancouver when it was picked up to series. I hope it doesn't loose that interesting character with the transition.
Most of the cast members really do look like they stepped out of a catalog photo, but the main performances are all solid.
I ended up being really blown away. Based on the series of books by Lev Grossman, the story centers around Quentin Coldwater and Julia Wicker, childhood friends that were obsessed with fantasy growing up, particularly a five-book Narnia-esque series called "Fillory and Further". Now, recent college graduates, they are preparing for grad school.
Julia has already been admitted to Yale, and her life is fully on track. She has left their childhood imaginings behind her.
Quentin, an amateur slight-of-hand artist, can't bring himself to leave their childhood imaginings behind him, and it's destroying his life. We meet him at his exit interview from the psychiatric facility he had checked himself into. His explanation for his depression is one of the more potent metaphors I've encountered for the often rough transition from childhood into adulthood.
Things take a turn when they show up for his graduate admissions interview to find the interviewer dead and the home in which the interview was to be conducted eerily mirrors the illustrations from his Fillory and Further first edition. Shortly thereafter, Quentin and Julia separately find themselves plucked out of their ordinary lives and given a shot at the Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy's graduate program. Brakebills is located vaguely in upstate New York and can best be described as reality-adjacent.
From there the plot takes a number of twists and turns that I did not see coming.
The showrunners are John McNamara ("Lois & Clark", the short-lived cult favorite "Profit", "Jericho", NBC's "Aquarius") and Sera Gamble ("Supernatural"). The writing is much better than Syfy's average. I haven't followed every series the channel has done, but it's definitely the best written I've watched on the channel since the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica".
The producing director is Mike Cahill, best known for his big screen collaborations with Brit Marling, Another Earth and I Origins. The look and feel of his pilot is very distinctive; there are three worlds presented in this episode, and each has its own distinctive look and feel. The production design is fairly simple but also distinctive and effective. The pilot was filmed in New Orleans, but production shifted to Vancouver when it was picked up to series. I hope it doesn't loose that interesting character with the transition.
Most of the cast members really do look like they stepped out of a catalog photo, but the main performances are all solid.