# Legend of the Seeker: Prophecy/Destiny (1)Nov.2008



## Truth Seeker (Nov 2, 2008)

*Prophecy/Destiny*

Writers:Kenneth BillerStephen Tolkin

Director:Mark Beesley

Stars:Bridget Regan (Kahlan Amnell)
Craig Horner (Richard Cypher)
Bruce Spence (Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander)

Recurring Role:Craig Parker (Darken Rahl)
Jay Laga'aia (Chase)
David de Lautour (Michael Cypher)
After the murder of his father, and a chance encounter with a mysterious Confessor named Kahlan, Richard Cypher learns of an ancient prophecy that has named him the first true Seeker in over a millennium. Along with an old wizard named Zedd, Richard and Kahlan must stop the ruthless tyrant Darken Rahl from unleashing an ancient evil​


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## Ranger REG (Nov 2, 2008)

Raimi's back on TV (as executive producer), and back to syndication, which have been a struggling if not dying niche market. Of course, anyone who is old enough could remember that before he directed the _Spider-Man_ film franchise for Sony, he was juggling with _Hercules: The Legendary Journey_ (you can blame him or Tapert for giving Kevin Sorbo a big break in the industry) and _Xena: Warrior Princess_ TV shows.

But will _Legend of the Seeker_ be different than his previous TV works? Will it be a little less campy?


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## Ed_Laprade (Nov 2, 2008)

I watched about an hour of this and found it poorly acted and generally predictable. In short, boring.


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## Brown Jenkin (Nov 2, 2008)

I enjoyed it. It is far better than most everything on the Sci-Fi channel and half of the genre programming on network TV.


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## Ranger REG (Nov 2, 2008)

Now that I have finally watched it, I can honestly say ... it needs work.

The premiere episode starts off slow. The dialogue could be a little bit better. I'm reluctant to approve the leading actor. The SFX, mainly the Wizard's Fire, could be better, and should since Raimi have had experience with better SFX in films. It also happens to take slo-mo combat elements from _300_.

The good things?

1. Bruce Spence (whose credit stretched back to _Mad Max_ to _LOTR_ -- he was the Mouth of Sauron in the XE DVD -- to _Star Wars_) who plays the wizard/mentor Zedd.

2. Craig Parker (formerly the blonde-haired tragic elf warrior Haldir in _LOTR_) plays the villainous Darken Rahl. Didn't recognize him in his dark hair but his voice is very familiar for his _LOTR_ quote: "The dwarf breathes so loud, we could have shot him in the dark."


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## Truth Seeker (Nov 2, 2008)

If Sam pays attention to the feedback. I do seeing the show getting tweaked.


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## Panthanas (Nov 3, 2008)

It was okay.  I'll keep watching if only because I read the books.


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## Orius (Nov 3, 2008)

Ranger REG said:


> Raimi's back on TV (as executive producer), and back to syndication, which have been a struggling if not dying niche market.




Yup, Raimi again.  Any bets on how long it'll be before Bruce Campbell shows up in a guest spot? I'm saying no earlier than February sweeps.  



> But will _Legend of the Seeker_ be different than his previous TV works? Will it be a little less campy?




I think so.  This was played straight, quite a bit different from Herc.  



Ranger REG said:


> Now that I have finally watched it, I can honestly say ... it needs work.




Yeah, not bad, but predictable.  It was largely Plot by Numbers, the usual old fantasy tropes.  The orphan of prophesy, the old mentor, the evil overlord, and I could just go on and on.   I suspect this is an artifact from Goodkind's books, because while I was looking for those links at tvtropes, I checked the _Sword of Truth_ page:



			
				tvtropes.org said:
			
		

> Richard Cypher is a woods guide living in a mostly-pastoral nation called Westland, cut off from the rest of the world—known to them as consisting of two other lands, called the Midlands and D’Hara—by a magical boundary that is in fact a window to the underworld; all who enter it die. After coming upon an "odd-looking vine", he spots a mysterious and beautiful woman who looks worried. Offering to help her, he finds she is being trailed by assassins.
> 
> She explains that she has come in search of a great wizard, who supposedly came to Westland years ago, to help defend the Midlands against a man named Darken Rahl, who hopes to bring all the world under his dominion. Richard knows that what she says is impossible; nothing can get through the boundaries, and Westland doesn’t have any magic. Yet he has never seen a woman like her, nor men like those hunting her. He decides he should take her to Zedd, a slightly crazy old man who is like a grandfather to him, and who always seems to know everything that goes on...
> 
> If you cannot see where this is going, we pity you.




So yeah, I'm guessing the books (which I haven't read, and which I suspect some people will say I'm lucky, because I've seen the series get slagged quite often) are this badly predictable.  (If it is, dammit I should pursue my dream of writing because I know better than to follow this tired old plot).  Though Darken Rahl isn't bad for a villain name, best name in the entire story, really. 

Still, it was enjoyable.  Some of the effects were obviously blue screen, but it depends on how much budget they have to work with.  I thought it was worth watching, anyway.

How many caught the 30-minute preview for the show?


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## Hand of Evil (Nov 3, 2008)

I thought it was okay, it was intro of characters and world.  It will be interesting to see how they present some of the story.


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## Kaledor (Nov 3, 2008)

agg 

How did I miss this.  I was looking forward to watching it...  and thought I knew what sci fi was showing this last weekend (mostly terrible "scifi" movies).

When did it air?  
Is there a planned re-air?


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## Zaukrie (Nov 3, 2008)

must....get....dvr....

I missed it, but wanted to watch. The critic in the Mpls paper basically said the plot was a complete rip off of star wars...so far.


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## Brown Jenkin (Nov 3, 2008)

Kaledor said:


> agg
> 
> How did I miss this.  I was looking forward to watching it...  and thought I knew what sci fi was showing this last weekend (mostly terrible "scifi" movies).
> 
> ...




It is syndicated so you will have to find out for yourself. The website Legend of the Seeker has a zip code look up feature to see when/where it airs in your area. WGN also airs it so you might get a couple of shots. With the combination of WGN and my local channel I am getting 3-4 airings a week at all kinds of times.


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## Hand of Evil (Nov 4, 2008)

Kaledor said:


> agg
> 
> How did I miss this.  I was looking forward to watching it...  and thought I knew what sci fi was showing this last weekend (mostly terrible "scifi" movies).
> 
> ...



WGN had it on at 5 to 7 Saturday, my local station had it 6 to 8.  I am sure some one will have it back on this week.


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## Orius (Nov 5, 2008)

Zaukrie said:


> must....get....dvr....
> 
> I missed it, but wanted to watch. The critic in the Mpls paper basically said the plot was a complete rip off of star wars...so far.




Not entirely.  Yeah, there's places where it matches up, but I attribute it to both stories pretty much dipping from the same Campbellian sources.  Or maybe one could just say that Lucas and Goodkind just don't know how to not trip into the cliches.   Not like say, _Eragon_, where you can make an accurate scene-by-scene comparison of the two.


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## Ranger REG (Nov 5, 2008)

Kaledor said:


> When did it air?
> Is there a planned re-air?



Better yet, will they upload the full episodes online for re-viewing?

(Since I upgrade to basic DSL -- 3Mbps -- I've been watching full-episode shows online -- when available -- and stop recording them on my VCR.)

Oh, yeah. As everyone says, it's syndicated, so check your local TV listing, or go to Legend of the Seeker


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## Krug (Nov 6, 2008)

Boy you can play a spot-the-cliche drinking game with this one. Still meh; not terrible but not too good either.


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## Orius (Dec 15, 2008)

Bump for this week's episode, for those who missed it the first time around or whatever.  The premier was two hours, so only the first half this week.

Yes folks, we've hit the repeat cycle for the show already.  How depressing,  it's been on barely more than a month.


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## Felon (Dec 15, 2008)

"Predictable" is probably being too generous. "Derivative" is the word that best described the premier I saw. 

Here's what we've got: a priestess fleeing from the evil troopers of a powerful and dark sorcerer (named, aptly, "Darken Rahl") in a desperate bid to contact some wise old good-hearted wizard who's been hiding out for the last two decades pretending to be a crazy old hermit. The wizard's motive for doing so? To watch over a special young man with a very important destiny--the destinty of becoming The Seeker. Although the lad's training is minimal, he's got heaps of natural talent and still manages to overcome Darken's legions and generally superior resources. Any of this sound familiar? Try swapping out a few words, like "priestess" with "princess". 

Mind you, the big problem with the show isn't that it's highly derivative. Derivative is fine if you're dealing with a young audience, because they lack the benefit of having seen the same old crap a thousand times, and they seem to love that "Chosen One" chestnut that's almost offensive to some older folks. No, Seeker's big problem is that it lacks focus on who it's trying to appeal to. Kids won't find much of interest in any of those three characters, and the tone of the show favors grimness and bombast over color and energy. The show doesn't have any comic relief (except for the old wizard's occasional wisecrack), and humor is what makes a work of fiction into something you can relate to even when the setting is fantastic.

BBC"s Merlin is not perfect by any stretch, but it is a much better example of how to make a fantasy show with a Chosen One theme that youngsters can relate to.

Now if the show wants to appeal to adults, then they have a lot of work ahead of them. They've got to make the trite Chosen One angle seem somehow fresh and innovative. They've got to lose the corny villain. "Darken Rahl"? Sheesh. They'd also need to punch up the dialogue, and they still need more humor, just a different type. Oddly, Raimi and Tapert have never hurt for levity in their shows before.


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## Darth Shoju (Dec 16, 2008)

Felon said:


> "Predictable" is probably being too generous. "Derivative" is the word that best described the premier I saw.




From what I've heard, that flaw was part of the books this show is based on. They would have had to change things quite a bit to address this. I went into the series expecting it to be derivative and I wasn't disappointed there.



Felon said:


> Now if the show wants to appeal to adults, then they have a lot of work ahead of them. They've got to make the trite Chosen One angle seem somehow fresh and innovative. They've got to lose the corny villain. "Darken Rahl"? Sheesh. They'd also need to punch up the dialogue, and they still need more humor, just a different type. Oddly, Raimi and Tapert have never hurt for levity in their shows before.




I'd be surprised if they made many changes of that level, since it would make shelling out for the rights to the story fairly pointless. That being said, they _could _stand to punch things up. The humour has been kind of weak so far. And they have been deviating from the plots of the books somewhat (so I've heard), so there's nothing stopping them from making things more interesting there either.


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## Mallus (Dec 16, 2008)

It's a handsome production, but a little, well, _dull_. Perhaps my expectations were too high. I thought that the team behind Hercules/Xena et al adapting the Conan the Libertarian novels of Terry Goodkind would be a bit more, well, batsh*t insane. I thought the result would be slightly absurd Objectivist fantasy (look, a redundant oxymoron, whee!). 

What I got was moderately high production values, a hot Confessor, and more thinly-veiled New Zealand travelogue.


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## Felon (Dec 16, 2008)

Darth Shoju said:


> I'd be surprised if they made many changes of that level, since it would make shelling out for the rights to the story fairly pointless. That being said, they _could _stand to punch things up. The humour has been kind of weak so far. And they have been deviating from the plots of the books somewhat (so I've heard), so there's nothing stopping them from making things more interesting there either.



A lot of what you pay for with a license is just the name. Starship Troopers would be one extreme example. A more moderate and relevant one would be Lord of the Rings, where characters were added from whole cloth (like the orc general--Lutz or something like that) while others were expanded from bit parts (like Aeowyn, to provided that much-needed heroine element). In the end, you try stay faithful, but few people are going to be faithful in the face of focus groups saying "change this".



Mallus said:


> It's a handsome production, but a little, well, _dull_.



Well, you probably summed the show's problems up in that sentence better than my whole post did. It's just dull.


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## Orius (Dec 16, 2008)

Mallus said:


> What I got was moderately high production values, a hot Confessor, and more thinly-veiled New Zealand travelogue.




What's wrong with a hot Confessor?  

But yeah, the dullness is pretty evident in the first episode, and I suspect it's from following the books rather closely.  The subsequent episodes have been a bit better, but the biggest problem overall is that its an adaptation of a book series instead of something original, so that limits the creative freedom the show has.


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## Zog (Dec 16, 2008)

Hulu - Watch your favorites. Anytime. For free. has all of the eps so far.

Its OK - nothing brilliant yet, but I've only seen the pilot and the next ep.


And I'm very curious to see where they go with the story - as MAJOR changes have already been made.  Namely, the main Plot / MacGuffin of the first book has been discarded or ignored.

In the book, the 'mysterious vine' grows because of some major 'The World Will Be Mine' Ritual the Darken Rahl has started - info on this in in the book of Counted Shadows - Which Richard HAS SPENT HIS LIFE MEMORIZING.  
No mention of the macguffins (boxes of Ogden) and the book of counted shadows is introduced directly counter to how it is in the book series.
Also, Zedd created the magical boundry.  Other things may come out as in the series slowly.  We shall see.


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## Merkuri (Dec 17, 2008)

Zog said:


> No mention of the macguffins (boxes of Ogden)




They actually introduced those in the last new episode.


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## Orius (Dec 22, 2008)

Second part this week.


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## Steel_Wind (Jan 10, 2009)

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.


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## Orius (Jan 12, 2009)

Steel_Wind said:


> 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.




That does not sound good.  I've also read that as time went on, he got on some kind of kick that he isn't writing fantasy either, but high-minded philosophical tracts or some such nonsense.  And getting derivative of Jordan (who did know where he was going with it, more or less) is probably not a good idea if you lack the writing skills to do so.

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.



> 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.




Syndicated TV is not going to be anywhere near on the level of pay able or movies.  There's only so much money one can get out of ads.  But the producers have plenty of experience with doing Hercules and Xena, and they're showing that they're up to the task here.  They've been consistantly delivering a solid show that's worth watching.  Also, it looks like they've been using a lot of talent from those shows as extras and guest stars so far in this series, and this week's episode was directed by Michael Hurst (Iolaus from Herc).

That brings me to something I've been wondering for a while.  IIRC, Hypersmurf did stuntwork or something on Xena.   I've been wondering if he's done anything in this show so far.


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## Orius (Jun 1, 2009)

Well, the first season wrapped up, so back into the summer repeat cycle.  And we start back at the beginning ... again.


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