Watched the opening episode last night. Overall, it was entertaining and generally well done for TV fantasy, with a few false notes. On the otherhand, I'm not all that compelled to return for further episodes. I *might* stick with it, but right now I'm more meh than amazed.
PLOT SUMMARY WITH MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOWS!!! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! NO WHINING!
I thought the leads were decent, though I'm rather tired of the "hot teen hero" trope that seems to be everybody's attempt to copy THE HUNGRY DIVERGING MAZE WAVE mosh that Horrywood is obsessed with these days. The whole thing begins with an entirely predictable "Gauntlet run" among teen competitors, all willing to be borderline ruthless in order to become "The Chosen" guardians? protectors? really bored gardeners? of a giant tree called the Eklis (or something like that; I'm going with phonetics here). The race is run blindfolded, through the woods, with hands tied behind backs, with apparent "visions" sent by the tree to guide the racers (or not) past other trees, lowhanging branches, and one big ditch apparently leftover from that fight in SW:TFA. The teens are all "elves" (though the opening credits imply they're just a future branch of the human race), and apparently can make fantastic, possibly magical jumps over the ditch (but not, apparently, at any other useful time). Suffice it to say that the lone girl (the king's daughter or granddaughter; it's not clear) who has been secretly training for this, naturally wins despite attacks by her (sexist) male opponents. Wow, has anybody seen THE HUNGER GAMES? Meh.
Taken to the giant tree, she touches it during the (not really all that grand) induction ceremony, and has a vision of demons slaughtering her people. The tree is supposed to be the magical prison of a demon army (so naturally the elves have built their entire kingdom around it, including the palace and all their homes). But then, the elves no longer believe in this legend, or in magic at all (despite the visions and super-leap trick), so nobody believes her vision either. At a party, she has another vision of killing her own boyfriend (also a Chosen) whom she's not actually sure she loves anyway. But she doesn't want to kill him, so she runs away.
Meanwhile, a mystic sorcerer (druid) named Allanon wakes up from what appears to be a magic form of cyrogenics, calls up his magical "extend a sword" (one guesses to prove he still can; there's no threat nearby), and yells at the world. Maybe because it's somewhere around Seattle, and all the Starbucks are gone, so no coffee for the druid. Bummer.
Meanwhile, meanwhile, a young half-elf watches his mother die after failing to find medicine to save her. She gives him his father's "elfstones" (three blue translucent pebbles) and tells him to "find the druid." His uncle Owen… I mean, Flick… wants him to throw away the stones and stay on the farm, probably to fix the moisture evaporators, but Luk… uh, Will, wants to find his way in the world (which is just what the uncle is afraid of, ahem), and sets off into the unknown, with no clue who or where or even if the druid (or any druid) actually exists, or what the stones are for.
The clueless half-elf is attacked by a "troll" (apparently another mutant human race), but saved by a "rover," a hot female human in tight leather from a bandit clan. She takes him to her treehouse makes him take a bath, and seductively gives him wine, which anybody else would see a mile off is a trick, but not clueless, who winds up drugged and robbed. And wakes up the next morning to have Allanon, the druid, standing over him. (My, that was convenient. And a very short quest.) The hot chick is long gone, with the elfstones. Allanon mutters something to the effect of being saddled with a dork, but clueless is apparently the last of the powerful Shannarra line, so the druid's got to make lemonade with this lemon, whom he needs because… well, we're not sure, but it does have something to do with the elfstones… which clueless no longer has.
So Allanon tows clueless to the elf court, where the elf king (John Rhys-Davies, in an honestly throw-away role) recognizes the druid as an old friend from his youth (when he "won the War of the Four Races") and comments on his lack of aging. The druid confirms the legend of the tree as true, and tells the elves to muster their armies. The elves have discovered the tree is indeed dying, but don't believe the legend, even with the ageless Allanon showing up thirty years after he was supposed to have died.
Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, another ancient druid named Darth… er, Dagor Mor, revives after the first leaf falls from the magic tree (each leaf is a demon, making the elf suburb around the tree even more "a bad idea"). He sends the first demon, a shapeshifter, to kill the Chosen guardians of the tree. (You see where this is going, right?)
Allanon and clueless now go off to "the Druids' Keep," where apparently the druids kept all their stuff, hence the name, because it's not a keep, it's a cave, to find the magic book that tells how to cure the tree. Which apparently, it doesn't actually do, but it tells how to plant a new one and restart the demon-prison process for another thousand years. Of course, you need a Chosen to do this… and you see where this is going too,
Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, the "rover" encounters the runaway elf princess and recognizes her rank. She tries to drug her too, but the elf is too crafty, and turns the table, stealing the rover's horse and loot (but not the elfstones). Elf princess goes off to find her aunt, banished from the elven kingdom because thirty years ago she had the hots for the druid, which apparently is a no-no for both elves and druids, and thus a good reason for prospective druids to consider another line of work.
Rover girl turns out to be the daughter of a clan leader, who has no use for thieves who drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cru… wait, no, for thieves who lose their loot to spoiled teen elf brats, and is about to sell her off to some other rover clansman (such a nice dad) when she shows him the elfstones and suggests she can use them to find the elf her took her loot, too (how is not clear; all the elfstones have done so far is look like pretty, misshapen dice). He calls her a good daughter and agrees to give her a second chance.
Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, back at the elf ranch, clueless goes creepy and searches the elf princess's bedroom (which no one has apparently thought to do), and amongst her unmentionables (one presumes) finds a stack of letters from the aunt. The druid at this point knows there is a shapeshifter in the court, but announces to all present that the girl must be with the aunt, but to maintain secrecy and protect her, only he and clueless (who has neither magical skill or combat training or any weapons for either) will go find her. Yeah, you know how that's gonna go, too.
The episode ends with clueless finding hot elf princess skinny-dipping near the aunt's place, while auntie and druid have a "how could you leave me to grow old," "hey, babe, I made no promises," moment, and then a new demon shows up to kill the princess… CLIFFHANGER!
Good points: the filming and setting are stunning. The CGI is excellent and doesn't feel fake. The banter is at times clever. The hot chicks are hot, and clueless has that young Cary Elwes thing that teen girls will swoon over. The acting is generally solid throughout.
The bad points: A bit formulaic, but that's standard for fantasy (evil dark lord with demonic horde and vague plans to lay waste to everyone for no apparent rational reason besides he likes dust and rock over water and trees). Way too teeny-bopper in tone at points, and the girls-in-tight-leather while everyone else wears comfortable clothing trope is frankly getting boring, no matter how hot the girls are. The two girls also look too much alike, so at times I was thrown as to whom I was watching at the start of various scene shifts. Dialogue (especially the exposition) is clunky at times, and the whole young druid/old girlfriend thing seems tacked on and rather pointless (I don't recall this from the book, either, but that was a loooong time ago). Also, what the Chosen are supposed to do is completely unclear, and the whole race thing comes across as the teen-dystopia rip-off it is pretty much played to be, and feels pointless as well, except to show us elf-babe's "mad skillz" at running blindfolded and getting tree-visions. Further, the differences between humans and elves apparently boil down to pointy ears and not much else. But it's early in the series, so perhaps there are more fundamental racial changes in ability or magic that have not yet appeared.
The uglies: The demons and the bad guy are suitable hideous, though he looks a bit too much like a cross between Voldemort, Nosferatu and SW:TFA's Snoke. They keep focusing on some bizarre piercings on the back of the guy's head, too, for no reason I could quite make out. As bad guys go, he's stereotypical, but the whole point of demons is to have evil you can indiscriminately slaughter without concern. This guy ain't gonna be doing the redemption thing. Of course, whether one musters the energy to actually hate him will depend on how the story progresses. At this point, he's too cardboard to be either a target of dark admiration (as Vader) or revulsion (as Voldemort). For now, he's just "the generic evil antagonist."
The tropes are running around like crazy in this series, which can be good or bad, depending on your point of view. I mostly don't mind, but there's very little of great originality here. The post-apocalyptic element makes for a few neat visuals, but really has nothing to do with the plot or the world, and probably could have been dropped for the generic fantasy setting the world actually feels like. As it is, it's no Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, though it's more in those two veins than the Game of Thrones vein. If you're starved for fantasy viewing, and prefer your violence and sex to be mild or only hinted at, it might wind up being worth a look.
COMING UP IN FUTURE EPISODES: The appearance of the Gnomes (dwarves?), who apparently hate elves, too, but maybe not as much as they hate demons and trolls, but whom the elf heir-apparent is currently blaming for the murders (as he still doesn't believe in demons), so a misguided race war is brewing. And the trope mania continues…
shows off these scenics for use in taverns and inns.
