We begin really nicely showing off the CGI and pretty
magic realm and two characters being nicely ominous
Unfortunately they’re being slightly ominous in a very very
ropey way. Apparently there’s something big and scary coming, time is running
out and they need someone young to save them all
Yes, it’s amazing how many times the world needs to be
saved by completely ignorant, untrained teenagers rather than experienced
professionals. Funny how that works out
So to out Gary Stu Chosen One – Quentin Coldwater
(really? Really? Quentin? We’re going with that?) In classic style he is, of
course an outcast and misunderstood and isolated and sad and he’s even taking
medication for depression (don’t get your hopes up – this isn’t a case of a
disabled protagonist – it’s the woo-woo looks like mental illness trope). Y’know,
just once I’d like to see a misunderstood outcast character who didn’t look
like they could work as a model. Outcasts don’t usually look like that.
This show does have a very CW-ish everyone must be
gorgeous feel to it.
Anyway, Quentin is obsessed with magic and a childhood
fantasy book called Fillory while his friends try to convince him to grow up
and join the real world. Except, not surprisingly to anyone, magic turns out to
be real and there’s even a school to teach potential students this: Brakebills
Let’s be clear now that naming things is not one of this
series strongpoint
Brakebills works by magically kidnapping potential students, throwing them into a room and demanding they perform a written exam (which, for some bewildering reason, they actually do rather than yell “what the hell is this and why is the writing moving and oh my god what did I drink?! Did you drug me?! HELP POLICE!”). Quentin-our-definite-chosen-one passes with some nifty CGI (the effects are damn good) which impresses Headmaster Dean.
This leads to a brief introduction of the school where
people are sorted into different groups according to their magical specialty
which at least makes more sense than mind reading millinery.
We also have the introduction of the 80 squillion
characters
Elliot, older student who is sarcastic
Margo, older student who likes fun (also one of the show’s
three POC)
Penny, (a man despite the name) student who hears voices
(second of the show’s three POC) and has floating sex with Kady
Kady, student who has floating sex with Penny
Alice, over-achieving serious, studious girl who I am
really trying NOT to compare with certain over female characters in similar
franchises
Julia, the character I actually want to be the
protagonist – Quentin’s long suffering childhood friend who keeps trying to
support his awkwardness
James, Julia’s boyfriend and Quentin’s best friend who is
quite normal as far as I can see
That’s a lot of characters which means a lot of them
simply cannot be developed, no way.
Julia has her own plot line – she’s also tapped by
Brakebills but doesn’t pass the test. They try to wipe her memory but she is
pretty extreme in trying to remember, cutting her arm to remind herself it’s
real, it’s not a dream. While Quentin (presumably) attends classes and leaves
the mortal world she drives herself to studying magic, convinced she has talent
– she even shows off some sparks to Quentin. He tries to talk her out of magic
and being all mundane which I suppose is a complete role reversal since she
tried to do the same to him – the difference being she knows magic is real
She is noticed by yet another character, Pete who runs
some kind of underground Magician society. Through a really unnecessarily rapey
scene (I get that to make a new magician tap into their powers they provoke an
extreme emotional response – but Qunetin got a teacher shouting at him while
Julia got stropped and tied up and menaced with rape? Even if you wanted to
make the point that the underground witches were harsher you could have had
them threaten her with literally anything but rape).
Julia’s storyline promises to be far far far far more interesting
than Quentin’s.
And at the school we get a heavy dollop of ominous.
Firstly, there’s an entire year of 20 people that has been decimated down to
four. Common with magical universities everywhere in fiction, it seems
Brakebills expects a certain percentage of their students to face mortal
danger. Really, magical schools are badly in need of health and safety
legislation.
Ominous
continues from the opening scenes, including Julia and Qunetin finding a body
and another book in the linked Fillory books (the body was apparently due to
diabetes and oreos combining in an unwise fashion but I doubt it). Quentin also
keeps having dream moments where a character from said books, Jane (Jane,
Julia, James? Pick another letter please. Apparently Margo was Janet in the
books so the TV writers noticed this was a problem as well) appears to say
ominous cryptic things to him.
Y’know, I
don’t know about anyone else but I reckon one of the top necessities for an
important warning would be “clarity.” It must be up there with “speed” and “getting
to the right person”. I’m sure important warnings should not be delivered in
cryptic-ese.
In one of
these dreams Quentin ends up with a symbol branded into the palm of his hand.
In any sensible reality he’d show this to a teacher – but this is tv world and
no-one ever shows anything to experts who may actually fix things. Instead he
takes it to brainbox Alice who decides it’s scary and super important but also that
she need to keep on being cryptic for REASONS.
Also they need to have a séance in the middle of the night with a stolen book. For REASONS. Alice wants to contact her mysteriously murdered brother who no-one talks about.
No,
really, Quentin goes along with this in the hope that Alice may possibly tell
him why, rather than saying she can steal her own book and GOING TO SEE A
PROFESSOR.
Penny and
Kady also join the séance because the voices in his head tell them to. Of
course they do. Absolutely no-one here considers that holding a séance in the
middle of the night in our world is unwise, doing it in a world with proven
magic is positively suicidal.
Nothing
seems to happen – of course – but we get an ominous smiley face in the
condensation of a mirror. No, really, that’s a damn scary smiley face right
there. Whatever other flaws the show has it has excellent atmosphere and
effects.
This may
or may not be why we get the big bad appear – in class all the clocks stop,
everyone is frozen (but aware, their eyes move which is really well done). A
man covered in moths – or maybe made of moths – sets the creepy bar to maximum
(again, really well done – just the way he moves is creepy). He then kills the
teacher
When
Dean, the headmaster, runs in to throw magic to save them, the bug monster
kills him – by ripping out an eye and drawing a bloody smiley face (by the way,
that’s the third POC and yes, he’s dead in the pilot. Yes, yes he is).
Again, it’s really really creepy and well done. Of course the monster then focuses on Quentin because he is the chosen one.
Ok, first
episode… and I don’t dislike it. Wow, how is that for lukewarm praise? I didn’t
dislike it – it’s just so very very very tropey. I’m not even going to make the
very obvious comparison with other shows because I don’t even think that’s fair
– magic school + Chosen One are such done tropes that I don’t think anyone can
be singled out as being the originator or a copier. It’s not that this would be
necessarily bad but I really need to see something more original than that.
Magic School, Big Ominous Threat, lots of Cryptic clues, and Magical Chosen One
with Social Awkwardness who didn’t even know the magic world existed five
minutes ago but now everyone requires him to save the world – this has been
done. I’ve seen this, I’ve read this in various different forms
I’m not
hating it, I am interested in seeing more, it could get a lot better – but at
the moment, I’m not seeing anything particularly new or interesting except
Julia’s storyline. Maybe if more of the eighty squillion characters get
developed a bit more we’ll see something new emerge.
