It looks as if they are going for hip and cool. I think it would play better if Dresden were a bit more brooding. It is a little too happy go lucky considering the subject matter. I will give it one more episode but I won't get my hopes up.

Read the novels by Jim Butcher to get a good handle on the character of Harry. He is supposed to be even more irreverent than he is on the show.

This is the problem with adapting material like this.

This is pretty toned down from the pilot that I saw.

Well, I watched the second episode. I thought it was a bit better, but as Dan said, the mood doesn't seem right. I'll give it one more chance...

Watched the first episode when it was offered for free on iTunes. Haven't read the books, so I don't know how they compare, but the characters and dialogue in the show were flat and uninteresting to me. I think I've been spoiled by the Whedonverse. Even when the plot was thin on Buffy, Angel, or Firefly, the characters and dialogue were sharp as tacks.

Hey Tony, did you get a visit from the Fab Five?

Did you catch me on the show?

No, but I'm digging the new look! Did you have to cut up cheese cubes?

No, just a wig, and a bowl on my head for the cut.

The latest episode was better; we actually got to see some wizarding.
I'll have to remember that thing with the mirror.

Scrying with a mirror has a long history. There is an effect you might find useful in The Wizards' Journal #1 (on my site) from Eleazar Goodenough, when he was just six years old (with a lot of help writing it down from the "old man"). It's called "I Scry."

"The scryer demonstrates the art and science of scrying with mirror and ink. A plain inexpensive hand mirror is shown and allowed to be handled by the person who lost the object. The mirror is placed on the table. Then the scryer takes a bottle of black ink and with an eye-dropper, drops some ink on the mirror. The ink begins to form numbers and letters on the mirror as the scryer rocks it back and forth."

In Eleazar's plot, the letters and numbers identify a chosen Tarot Card which has been "lost" in the deck as an example. The ink could also form an image of a person's face, for example, or a lost object. If you already have or get the article and want to investigate those other possibilities, we can do so via a secret session on The Magic Nook Forum.

The Dresden Files starts in the UK this Wednesday evening (Sky One at 9).

Barry