louiseromero

OK I am Australian and I watched 5 mins of this and knew right off it was made in Australia with a full Australian cast but one.

For some reason it might be the lack of syfi series made in Australia, Australian directors and actors like to treat all work as Art house drama. We just don't do suspense well. So saying that, this makes the first ep very disjointed. Like other reviewers, you do not feel a connection to the characters. This I blame the director. The acting is fine if you can get over the bad American accents. Flynn the main is pretty good with his dialect, the others need a lot of work. But the whole ep is all over the place. As viewers we want to love the main guy we want to have empathy for him weather it be a syfi or crime show. Sadly if the directing does not pull together suspense and let the characters develop I see this not picking up a second series.

OK I must be the only person who has read the book! Now the book is a hard read. I felt you are NOT meant to like the main character Quentin. He is a very self absorbed introvert, who in the book just walks away from his friends and leaves everything behind for his pursuit of magic.

To me he is the awful modern version of Holden Caulfield.

So this is NO Harry Potter - do not even compare. The books characters are flawed but deliberately. I felt the author wanted you not to like them.

I am not going into any detail. But the Show has taken the premise of the characters and re-written the entire thing and made something more, from shallow characters. I am really enjoying it. Don't waste your time on the book - this is one where the show outshines the pages.