Holy cow—I couldn’t wait, so I’ve started writing this as I’m reviewing this first batch of The Shannara Chronicles episodes to say—you need to be watching this show. January 5th at 10pm (9pm Central) on MTV, you need to be watching The Shannara Chronicles. If you consider yourself at all a fan of fantasy, this is absolutely the show you’ve been waiting for. It has incredible production value that stands up in this post Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones world, extremely cinematic and marvelously impressive for television. Writing, directing and acting are all as equally impressive as the art direction and costume design. In fact, my biggest complaint at this point is that there’s a character whose name sounds like “Al-Anon”—I keep wondering how his meetings are going.
The first time I got to see footage of what they were creating for the show, I literally had to take it—not with a grain of salt—with a boulder of salt. It couldn’t actually look that good, I thought. If it looks that good, the story’s probably terrible, I thought. If the story’s good too, the casting is probably awful, I thought. There had to be a shoe that was going to drop some where. . . So far I’ve yet to see any dropping shoes anywhere.
It’s thousands and thousands of years in the future, like way after Skynet. There are post-apocalyptic dystopian visions like The Hunger Games—this is after that, way after that. The reset button on the world, having long since been pressed, this then is the re-emergence of civilization (with magic!) on Earth. Over the millennia, humans have evolved along different paths becoming elves, gnomes, trolls and so on—oddly, animals like horses and dogs are still just horses and dogs, and relatives like aunts and uncles are occasionally murdered by demons.
Like any fantasy, we pick up right when a great evil is about to be unleashed on the land. Of course, any hope for the future rides on the destinies of certain “chosen ones” that begin their Hero’s Journey by turning it down. Pretty boilerplate—these are the staple elements common to fantasy (and most other stories), so there really are no new concepts in play. Although, the idea that it’s taking place far into the future feels new and is fun to chew on. What really works very well through these first episodes is the fresh telling through interesting and well-constructed characters. Characters that began as interesting creations on the page and continued into some solid performances in cool costumes. And, lest we forget it’s MTV (even as the network is in the midst of redefining itself, again-again), everyone is adorable and/or gorgeous and/or rugged and worthy of being stared at a lot. It’s those characters that are making the show engaging and fun and absolutely worth carving out couch-time for—and the special effects, really good special effects for television. Then there’s the sexy romance angles, the action-packed adventure elements, gorgeously stunning settings and locations. . .
That is to say that I could give you details about the druid warrior with glowing scars, the bleeding tree that locks demons in its leaves or the fun that comes with recognizing some of the ruins of our world in the distant backgrounds and establishing shots—but experiencing all of that and so much more, first-hand, is the real magic and pleasure of watching the show. The plot points are nothing to write home about; it’s the journey getting to those points. I don’t think this is the show that’s going to hook you because you’ll be wondering who gets killed next week and what other shocking secrets will be revealed—I think this is the show that will hook you because in the back of your mind, you’ll kinda sorta believe in magic again for an hour each week. That and the cast is very stare-at-able, as I mentioned before—meaning you can look at them for a long time and your eyes won’t hate you for it.
Judging by these first several episodes, this may literally be the television fantasy adventure I’ve been waiting for since. . . ever. If Hercules and Xena were never really up to snuff for you—if Legend of the Seeker was almost everything you were looking for—The Shannara Chronicles may just be what you’ve been hoping for too.
Here’s some more video to tide you over until it starts: