Dresden Files...

Jen and I just finished watching the Dresden Files on Sci-Fi, or rather we just finished watch it on the net. It's a new tv show based on a set of books we really liked. We've been rather excited to see it sense we found out it was coming, but the first episode left me unsatisfied. I'm about to spoil the episode for you, so if you don't want to know don't read farther.

The main character of the books and show is Harry Dresden, who is a practicing wizard in modern day Chicago. Above anything else, in the books, Harry is a smart ass. He is also very old fashioned, going out of his way constantly to help women and children. He is a nice guy. In the show he appears to be an asshole, and not very much of a wise ass.

I realize that when you make a set of books into a T.V. show you have to change some things, not everything works as well on T.V. as it does in a book. But one of the things that shouldn't change is the main character, and the one in the show is nothing like the one in the book. The show starts off with the main character Harry waking up in bed, with a woman next to him. In the book he was hopeless when it came to women. With the exception of one or two in his life. For him to be waking up with one in his bed is completely out of character for him. After she leaves he walks down into what I can only assume is supposed to be his office where he runs into "Bob". In the books Bob is a sentient spirit of air that live in a skull on Harry's shelf. He is sort of a PDA and Computer for the wizard world. In the books he resides in the skull for protection, in exchange for that protection he helps the wizard that owns him. He is also not able to come out of the skull with out permission of said wizard. Apparently in the show he is the ghost of a dead wizard, and he can come out of the skull when ever he feels like it.

In the book Harry drives "The Blue Beetle" which is as you can guess a VW. It is beat up, most the body panels have been replaced. It is a junky car, but it is his. And the books make a point of the fact that he loves his car. In the show he has a jeep, like it would have been that hard to get a beetle. The case revolves around a kid that has monster problems.

This is the point where I think the show strayed too far from the books. Harry is approached on the street by a kid that wants to pay him to look into his monsters. Harry refuses the money and tells the kid there is no such thing as monsters. This is not the Harry Dresden of the books. The Harry of the books would have believed the kid, he would also have taken the money. This Harry only looked into it after "Bob" talked him into it, which wouldn't have been the case in the books. In the books "Bob" is constantly trying to talk Harry out of doing stuff.

All in all I'd say that if I hadn't read the books I may have liked the show, but there are too many things that they changed for no reason. Things that they should have left the same. In the books technology doesn't work around Wizards. Light bulbs burn out if he stays by the too long. So his apartment is lit by candles. But in the show he has lights everywhere. I also noticed a TV in the background of one shot, he doesn't own one. Not only do the tend to blow up on him, they don't get reception when he's near.

At any rate, I'm gonna watch one or two more shows before I decide to hate it. But I think that's how it's going to turn out.