Amen brother. You put to words exactly what I was feeling about the show but unable to express. I remember using VHS tapes to record almost 4 hrs of those shows (in a block after 11 every sat night) and watching them again and again during the week till the next Saturday night.
Some were horrible and some were too good for that time slot. -Nate Winchester
I've been watching the first season with my girlfriend, who loved the old Raimi shows, and we agree that it is largely pretty good, with a continuing storyline that works for the medium, and, really, is the gratuitous amounts of pure Fanservice really a bad thing in this kind of show? We don't think so.
The only episode I really disliked was the Magic = Drugs Aesop. Come on, guys. That was stupid when Buffy did it.
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." - E. Gary Gygax
I'll certainly agree that a person's enjoyment of the show is inversely proportional to their enjoyment of the books.
Took the words right out of my mouth, you did. The first time I watched it, I scoffed and rolled my eyes at the cheesyness (I tend to do this a lot to shows that I end up adoring, cheesy or not) but something stayed my hand from changing the channel. I continued to watch every episode, even though I considered it absurd and campy. I just didn't want to admit that I genuinely enjoyed the show and thought it was good. Luckily, I got over myself and now freely admit to loving this show.
And I also agree with the above poster. I despise the books with a passion, so that helped me warm up to the show a lot faster. I find it's better written, less preachy, and lacks God Mode Sue protagonists.
There actually fans of the books? I got 200 pages into the first one and nearly died of nausea. I saw parts of a few episodes of this show and thought it was worse than "Beastmaster" and "Conan." And those are pretty bad. I like the new 'post-Peter Jackson' era...with shows like "Game of Thrones." You can keep Legend of the Seeker, which was mercifully put out of our collective mistery a year or two ago. I like my brain cells left on.
There is more distillation than decay. TV starts with Kahlan and Denee fleein from D'Harans who kill Denee meeting Richard. Book starts with Richard doing nothing much for ages and eventually seeing the D'harans chase Kahlen, meanwhile Denee is just the Dead Little Sister from the backstory.
Zedd's impish humour and Rahl's charm are more prominent in the TV. Zedd isn't even there for 2/3 of the book and in the Book he does some spells naked squick squick.
Book doesn't even explain Confessor power until page 510. WTF???
Decay: book!Rachel is more proactive. TV Rahl is a generic tyrant; book!Rahl is specifically a Hitler-Stalin-portmanteau tyrant.
Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!
I sir, have never heard of those actors, but still feel I belong on TV Tropes. However, I do like this show, even if it can be dumb at times, and the second season was not nearly as good as the first, but it was still fun. Even my Dad, who's read every single Sword of Truth book at least thrice enjoys it. While this may simply be him being a stranger member of the fanbase, it still shows that some can accept it. Bottom line, if you like Raimi, you won't be disappointed. At least this didn't open with "It was an odd-looking vine."
I'm a geek.
I honestly can say this is my favorite fantasy TV series. Granted, it may be the first that I watched, so nostalgia is a factor. Even so I keep coming back to rewatch it all periodically. It\'s got many things that appeal to me-engaging, likeable characters, pretty fast drama and an interesting world (albeit aspects of it aren\'t to my taste). Sure, it\'s often cheesy, but that\'s part of the charm to me.
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Old School, Low Budget, High Fantasy
If you're like me you grew up watching actors like Kevan Sorbo and Lucy Lawless (and if not why are you on TVTropes?). Those were the heady days of action adventure series featuring criminally cliched writing, no name actors, and rampant continuity errors. Shows so horribly tacky and low brow they had to be shelved away in Saturday night time slots where they couldn't harm the general public. Well folks I am here to happily tell you that Legend of the Seeker is exactly like those shows. This is old school action. Where the Mcguffins are magical, the villains have names like Darken Rahl, and good triumphs at the end of every one hour segment.
Its certainly not for everybody. You will need to switch off the vast majority of your functioning brain cells to enjoy this show. Its also received serious accusations of Adaptation Decay. To put it lightly, fans of the the books generally do not care for this show. This is fine. They can keep their books, and I will continue to stay far, far, away from Terry Goodkind and his Serious Business objectivist rants. For the rest of us, those misty eyed nerds with memories of the halcyon 90s and a seething hatred for the Reality TV that killed it, Legend of the Seeker is a nostalgic good time. Its one of the few Walking The Earth shows left, and with Sam Raimi behind it the things actually half way watchable. Give it a few minutes for old time's sake.