Legend of the Seeker

Richard Cypher(Craig Horner) and Kahlan Amnell(Bridget Regan) Photo courtesy Disney ABC Domestic Television

As a fan of Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series of books, I was surprised I hadn’t heard anything about this new show until I stumbled across it while channel-surfing.  Color me excited at my discovery.  It always struck me as a story that would make a good movie or TV show, if done right.  Half a dozen episodes in, the jury is still out on whether Legend of the Seeker  is succeeding at bringing the books to life.   

The story is this:  Our hero is Richard Cypher, an average woodsman with an ordinary life and an extraordinary destiny.  Prophecy has told that he is the first Seeker in a thousand years, a warrior who can defeat the darkest evil that no one else can.  This evil is personified in the form of Darken Rahl, ruler of D’Hara, and he is determined to find and kill the Seeker before the prophecy can be fulfilled.  Richard is helped on his journey down the hero’s path by Zeddicus Z’ul Zorander, a wizard in hiding, and Kahlan Amnell, a mysterious and independent woman with a destiny of her own.

If you were a fan of Hercules and Xena in the nineties, this show is going to bring back a lot of memories.  Produced by the same people(Renaissance Pictures), shot in the same location(New Zealand), and acted by many a familiar face from those shows, it has a very similar feel.  The casting of the three main characters is spot-on.  Richard(Craig Horner), Kahlan(Bridget Regan), and Zedd(Bruce Spence) look exactly like I had always imagined them.  Darken Rahl(Craig Parker) is not quite as menacing a character as he is in my imagination, but that might be the result of lingering elf impressions.  They do well with the writing they’re given.  Which, honestly, is a bit hokey at times, and veers into overly-obvious during some of the exposition.  Given that this show is more serious than Herc/Xena, I did expect more from the writing.  Still, it’s early; no show is perfect right off the bat.  Besides the cast, other things that truly work: 

• The cinematography.  It’s gorgeous to watch.  You can’t go wrong with Kiwi scenery. 
• The fight scenes.  It looks like the style of their fights was decided early on, and they remain consistent.  Richard and Kahlan take on hoards of soldiers at once, just like Herc and Xena did, but slow-motion and menacing background music give them a stronger sense of danger. 
• Sticking to Goodkind’s rules.  While it’s based on the books and not a literal re-telling, it does keep all the important points of the story.  No one’s motivations are changed, no one’s abilities have been magnified or diminished. 

All in all, it shows promise, if it gets a chance to get to the meaty parts of the story.  It might be better served as a motion picture, given that it would have a larger budget, but it’s length(twelve books) probably precludes that happening.  Goodkind doesn’t write kids books–they get very, very dark.  How the show adjusts to these more disturbing sections could be tricky.  I’m an optimist, though, so I’m going to trust that this currently vibrant, colorful bit of television will do it’s best.

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