I'm a big fan of the books and was excited to see whether this show did them justice. Mostly, I'll have to say "No, they did not." Here is why.
Casting.
Harry.
Paul Blackthorne does a good enough job. He's charming and kind of funny, but Harry was supposed to be the mildly dorky guy who kind of gets into situations he'd rather not be in, but can't avoid either because he's a good guy. I don't think he quite captured the essence of that. He looked a bit too old too, but that's not quite as relevant as the earlier stuff.
Connie Murphy. Valerie Cruz. My first complaint. WHY THE HECK IS SHE NOT BLONDE? I realize it's a minor thing, but come on. Ideally, I would've wanted to see someone like Sarah Michelle Gellar in the role of Karrin Murphy, but I guess that's asking for the moon. I really don't think the actress did a good job capturing what I feel was my favourite character in the books.
Morgan. No complaints.
Ancient Mai. Didn't like. She felt random and the acting sucked at times.
Bob. Completely slaughtered his character, but I feel it worked out better than in the book.
The series had a few creative things going on as far as writing and camera work was concerned, particularly in the episode where they get surrounded by the black fog of death. Mostly, the writing felt rushed and sometime stilted. The acting was wooden. I think they should've avoided their approach with one adventure per episode. Or rather, they should've done a few of those too, but split books into three or four episodes and mixed in stand-alones in between.
The magic. I liked how, in the books, you couldn't just do every single thing with it. In the series, it's more of a every-day Harry Potter style of magic. But it's never really explained as well as in the books and I feel they should've put more time into explaining the rules.
I feel that an R rating probably would've been of the good. The books got pretty bloody at times and I feel that the series lost it's feel of how deep in Harry is. It also really showed by the effects that they probably could've used a bigger budget.
To summarize. A good swing, but it missed. I do hope they'll try again at some point.
Casting.
Harry.
Paul Blackthorne does a good enough job. He's charming and kind of funny, but Harry was supposed to be the mildly dorky guy who kind of gets into situations he'd rather not be in, but can't avoid either because he's a good guy. I don't think he quite captured the essence of that. He looked a bit too old too, but that's not quite as relevant as the earlier stuff.
Connie Murphy. Valerie Cruz. My first complaint. WHY THE HECK IS SHE NOT BLONDE? I realize it's a minor thing, but come on. Ideally, I would've wanted to see someone like Sarah Michelle Gellar in the role of Karrin Murphy, but I guess that's asking for the moon. I really don't think the actress did a good job capturing what I feel was my favourite character in the books.
Morgan. No complaints.
Ancient Mai. Didn't like. She felt random and the acting sucked at times.
Bob. Completely slaughtered his character, but I feel it worked out better than in the book.
The series had a few creative things going on as far as writing and camera work was concerned, particularly in the episode where they get surrounded by the black fog of death. Mostly, the writing felt rushed and sometime stilted. The acting was wooden. I think they should've avoided their approach with one adventure per episode. Or rather, they should've done a few of those too, but split books into three or four episodes and mixed in stand-alones in between.
The magic. I liked how, in the books, you couldn't just do every single thing with it. In the series, it's more of a every-day Harry Potter style of magic. But it's never really explained as well as in the books and I feel they should've put more time into explaining the rules.
I feel that an R rating probably would've been of the good. The books got pretty bloody at times and I feel that the series lost it's feel of how deep in Harry is. It also really showed by the effects that they probably could've used a bigger budget.
To summarize. A good swing, but it missed. I do hope they'll try again at some point.