by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
In an effort to produce more quality programming, the SciFi Channel has released a terrific new hour-long series: The Dresden Files. Starring British actor Paul Blackthorne (played Stephen Saunders on Season 3 of 24) as Harry Dresden, a quick-witted private detective who is in touch with the supernatural forces of the spirit world, this show is set in Chicago. Harry helps the police on bizarre and baffling cases and investigates his own cases.
Harry sees crime scenes differently than regular homicide detectives. By looking beyond the physical reality to discover if there are sinister otherworldly forces at work. Harry is a real wizard (listed as such in the Chicago phone book) who consults a spirit guide. Bob (Terrence Mann) appears to him as a spirit in the flesh and is Harry’s mentor and spiritual advisor.
The premise sounds hokey but the scripts are imaginative and well-written. The acting is also first-rate. Blackthorne adds his bit of humor to the mix, which makes Harry a regular-guy character. The series has a Medium-like quality except that Harry is a normal single guy (as opposed to Patricia Arquette’s married Medium). He sleeps with a waitress from his favorite diner and is cozy with a female homicide detective Lt. Connie Murphy (Valerie Cruz).
In the pilot episode, Birds of a Feather, Harry flashes back to his childhood when he first discovered he had special powers. His dad was a mediocre magician and, in one sequence, Harry saves his dad’s act by doing some real magic. His father is furious, and makes Harry swear that he’ll never do that again.
A while later, Harry is approached on the street by a kid who tells him he is hounded by monsters and he offers Harry five grand to help him. However, he buys him lunch to find out more. He dismisses the kid and tells him to save his money for college. Later in the episode, Harry finds out that his homicide case is related to the kid. Harry consults a medium friend of his, Melissa, to check out the High Council records for any mention of the kid named Scott.
Lt. Murphy brings Harry into a strange murder case of a school teacher who has been murdered and skinned, and there is no blood. Bob tells Harry about the evil spirits called skin walkers–shape-shifters who steal a person’s skin and take their identity. Then Harry connects Scott’s apparitions with the skin walker when he finds out that Scott’s teacher was the murder victim, and the skin walker is now impersonating her in a plot to abduct Scott. It seems the boy has special powers of great importance to the dark side.
When Harry rushes to Scott’s house he has already been abducted, not by the skin walker but by another evil spirit. Harry is having a bad day, but it gets worse when the skin walker shows up at his digs and tortures him to find Scott. As a spirit, Bob can’t intervene and watches helplessly as Harry is tortured.
With Bob’s help, Harry constructs a Doom Box to get back at the skin walker. He eventually gives the gift to the skin walker who can’t resist opening it. It contains a special death ray that neutralizes the skin walker.
Although there is a tongue-in-cheek undertone to the show, it’s not taken too far to negate the premise that Harry is a genuine wizard and a medium. Yes, it does require the viewer to suspend one’s disbelief in real magic and wizards, but it’s pure fantasy and well worth viewing. The show debuted on the SciFi channel Sunday, Jan. 21 and runs on Sundays at 9:00 pm ET followed by another premier SciFi show, Battlestar Galactica.
|
