SyFy manages a neat trick with intriguing ‘The Magicians’
There’s a kind of sly genius behind the SyFy Channel’s new series “The Magicians,” which begins with a number of thinly disguised references to frothy magic-laced fantasies such as “Harry Potter,” “The Secret Garden” and “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” among others.
But “The Magicians,” premiering Monday, is anything but adapted kiddie lit.
The series, adapted by Sera Gamble and John McNamara from Lev Grossman’s bestselling trilogy, focuses on misfit and recent college graduate Quentin Coldwater ( Jason Ralph) ,who is about to take an entrance exam for postgraduate work at Yale.
As a kid, he was deeply into fantasy and magic, as were many of his friends, including his bestie, Julia (Stella Maeve). Other kids grew out of the whole fantasy phase, but not Quentin. He knows what he’s supposed to be doing at this point in his life, but his heart isn’t in it. The Peter Pan syndrome thing has landed him in a mental institution for a few days and earned him a mood-leveling drug prescription.
Quentin is fixated on a five-novel series of fantasy books by the fictional Christopher Plover called “Fillory & Further,” about three English children who enter a secret world by stepping into a grandfather’s clock. One day, Quentin is handed the manuscript of a hitherto unknown sixth book in the series, which leads him into the land of Fillory and to an upstate New York magic college known as Brakebills University.
At this point, you should have already thought of the three actual aforementioned fantasy classics. That’s exactly what Grossman intends.
Quentin may be fascinated with magic, but he has yet to realize the difference between sleight of hand and the real thing. That realization comes during his admissions interview at Brakebills when he discovers he has magical powers.
Quentin may be excited about the possibility of studying real magic, but he’s still a socially inept misfit. His roommate Penny (Arjun Gupta) thinks he’s too naive for his own good and just wants him out of the way when he hooks up with Kady ( Jade Tailor).
Foppish older student Eliot (Hale Appleman) and unwaveringly forthright Margo (Sumner Bashil) try to help Quentin stay out of trouble, but that seems to be an impossible task. He eventually finds common ground with school nerd Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley).
Quite soon, we understand that Brakebills is not Hogwarts and that real demons, black magic and gory physical assaults are more the fashion here than a rousing game of Quidditch.
At first, Ralph seems a little old for the part of Quentin, but he skillfully personifies a postgraduate man-child.
The show’s special effects are deftly executed, and the script is nicely crafted with twists, turns and surprises to hold our attention.
You could almost say it’s magic.