Review: The Dresden Files 101 – 103
A new series on the Sci-Fi chan with big behind-the-camera names attached to it. First of all, Nicolas Cage is an executive producer. Probably more of a monetary title, the other names are pretty much the creative forces. Headed by Hans Beimler and Robert Hewitt Wolfe, things are looking positive. After all, these two were prominent writers on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Like their colleagues, I follow them closely (Rene Echevarria/Now and Again, Dark Angel, The 4400 – Ronald D. Moore, David Weddle, Bradley Thompson/Battlestar Galactica – Ira Steven Behr/The 4400 – Michael Piller/The Dead Zone), the list is filled with only quality shows.
Somehow though, they’ve taken a turn somewhere, and it’s one I don’t like. Totally abandoning in-depth character exploration and development, they’re probably chasing the books (can’t really tell, I avoid books like the plague) and going for the most simple style of storytelling set in a fantasy world with wizardry and accompanied scary creatures like werewolves and demons. This means an unrestricted way of going through the story, including easy endings with made-up potions or magic artifacts. Loosely translated, it’s a pretty lazy job. The beauty of their earlier works was that it was actually sci-fi (also unrestricted story telling), but they’d bound it closely to reality, both in story- and characters-wise, with real consequences.
All that cutting-edge stuff is now muddled into the pool of ordinary episodic forget-me-easilies. I give it a few more weeks, but don’t expect me to hang on if the direction stays the same.