Feature story
Magic moments: Syfys The Magicians
is an underrated fantasy gem
By Shona Dustan
TV Media
T hink of your favorite book series and
why you love it. Is it a fantasy that
takes you far away, allowing you to
escape from the mundanity of everyday
life? Is it a mystery that teases your
brain, twisting and turning every time
you think you have the answer figured
out? Or is it a romance, heartwrenching
and steamy, that makes you flush and
swoon?
Now imagine discovering that that
world, the world to which you have
escaped time and again, is real. Thats
the premise of Syfys criminally underrat-
ed The Magicians, which is based on
the book series of the same name by Lev
Grossman. The series is now in its second
season, and a new episode airs
Wednesday, April 12.
The series stars Jason Ralph
(Aquarius) as Quentin Coldwater, an
intelligent 20-something who has always
felt like he doesnt belong in what we
consider the real world. In the first
season, he and his best friend, Julia
(Stella Maeve, Chicago P.D.), are sud-
denly whisked away to take an entrance
exam for Brakebills University, a post-
secondary institution where magic is
taught in many different forms.
8 | P REVIEW TV A PRIL 9 - 15, 2017
Quentin and Julia spent much of
their adolescence engrossed in a series
of novels set in a fictional world called
Fillory its kind of The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe meets Harry
Potter and, like fans of those series,
fans of the Fillory books are intense.
Love for the books and their magic
world form the basis of their friendship,
so when they discover that magic is, in
fact, real, both are desperate to learn
how to wield it. Unfortunately, for rea-
sons that are explained toward the end
of season 1 (you wont get any spoilers
from me!), Julia is not accepted to the
school, but Quentin is, causing a rift in
their relationship that may never fully
heal.
Before I get back to the Fillory plot-
line, I should mention that the cast of
characters introduced at Brakebills is rich
and wickedly entertaining. Quentin gains
two mentors of sorts in Eliot (Hale
Appleman, Smash) and Margo
(Summer Bishil, Lucky 7), older stu-
dents with physical magic abilities simi-
lar to Quentins. Olivia Taylor Dudley
(Paranormal Activity: The Ghost
Dimension, 2015) stars as Alice Quinn,
a magical prodigy and Quentins love
interest. Arjun Gupta (Nurse Jackie)
and Jade Tailor (Murder in the First)
round out the main cast as the badasses
Penny and Kady, respectively; Penny is a
traveler (he can jump through time and
space), and Kady is a skilled battle magi-
cian with secrets.
The group is initially brought together
under terrifying circumstances: a creepy
moth-faced man seems to be hunting
them, and they must work together to
figure out how to stop the evil he repre-
sents. While unraveling the truth about
the mysterious moth man, Quentin
becomes increasingly convinced that
Fillory is not just an imaginary world
described in childrens books, but that its
a real place full of real magic. Hes right,
of course, and after figuring out how to
get to the magical land of his dreams,
the group embarks on an adventure that
culminates in a devastating battle. And
so ends season 1.
But just as they say you should never
meet your heroes, you should likewise
never go to the land of your dreams, for
dreams can easily become nightmares.
The once-beautiful Fillory is in trouble
magic is fading slowly from the land,
and therefore disappearing from our
world as well, and the Brakebills stu-
dents (who are constantly fighting their
own figurative demons as well as actual
demons) become the high kings and
queens of the land and do everything
they can to save it.