The Magicians

Magicians floating in air

There’s something familiar about The Magicians, but I can’t place my wand on exactly what it is.

There’s something very familiar about The Magicians. I don’t know if it’s the boy who learns he can do magic, real magic, or that he attends a secret, magic school. Maybe it’s the fact that the school can only be accessed and seen by folks who know magic. It could be the boy and his friends have a mysterious, evil foe as a nemesis.

It could be The Magicians is a total clone of Harry Potter. Sure, the showrunners have tried to hide the fact it wants to be Harry Potter by having characters cut from every cliche of television character (Inner city, homosexual, preppy, hipster, etc) possible, but it’s still Harry Potter. The college doesn’t have an evil Slytherian frat house for our main characters to fight. No, the evil students in this series are actually kids who weren’t selected for admissions. Which is not Harry Potter in the least bit. You should read the last sentence with a lot of sarcasm.

Harry Potter screaming
” No one rips off Harry Potter!”

It’s not even a good Harry Potter knock off. The Magicians have managed to take out everything that made Harry Potter fun. There are no surprises in The Magicians, no jump moments, and no scenes where Harry…I mean Quentin…plays a nonsense game on broomstick. Seriously, a game of quidditch would do this series a world of good.

Before you go any further, I know The Magicians is based on a book. I’ve never read the books nor did I know the books existed before the SyFy series. I’m not the biggest J.K. Rowling fan. I could go on about how I think Rowling is a hack, but at least she didn’t completely rip off another series.

Tim Hunter with owl
“Except you ripped me off, Harry.”

I would recommend The Magicians to die-hard fans of magic, but not to Harry Potter fans or anyone who even knows Harry Potter. There’s nothing original about The Magicians. It’s a shame too, because magic and the supernatural is ripe with stories to be told. If SyFy and the showrunners had taken a moment with some creative writers they may have come up with something with a kernel of originality.

D