Stargate Archives

Thursday 30 December 2010

The Dresden Files Disk1

Birds of a Feather
Harry is approached by a young boy who believes he is being watched by monsters and fears
for his life and his mothers. Harry is persuaded by Bob to give the boy the benefit of the
doubt and learns that there have been forces at play since his birth.
This was the first episode of the series proper and we have Bob as an actual visible entity
rather than a skull with flashing eyes as he was in the pilot and novel. This makes some sense
for a television show, easier for the viewer to accept the character and Terrance Mann does
a great job as the cynical yet ultimately helpful spirit.
Harry with a stay over night girlfriend is very different from the novels, perhaps an attempt
to make him the "traditional" male hero and they gave Murphey a daughter which quite frankly
hamstrings most of the characters back story.
Overall not a bad episode to kick off a new show, a decent story with some nice effects and it
certainly did enough to keep me watching when first aired. On this rewatch however being very
familiar with the original source material I find quite a bit of the back ground information offered
up and characterisations to be too jarring.


The Boone Identity
Harry is called in to aid a antique dealer who believes his mudered daughter is haunting the shop. Harry experiences her presence and events of the night she died which point leads him into a closed police investigation.
A number of coincidences point Harry to a devote of Egyptian mythology and the revelation of the power of the stolen artefact.
This episode like the first has no direct link to the novels but gives us a nice story with a human
element and a healthy does of mysticism, mythology and the supernatural as well as a good
old fashioned bunch of bad guys. It does however show us the promise that Murphy demanded of
Harry in so far as he was always to be honest with her, a failing which leads to no end of
trouble in the early novels. It is perhaps the best part of this episode for a fan of the books
even allowing for obvious issues of how Harry kept everything from the police with his only ally
benched.

Hair of the Dog
It's werewolf time along come the FBI which has echos of the second novel "Fool Moon", alas
not even in the same league but as cliched werewolf stories go I had no real problems with it.
There are a few twists and turns and a victim we can root for as well the usual bad guy types who we can despise at our lesiure and cheer their comeuppance. In terms of the investigation we do see why having a real "Bob" helps in telling a TV story although obviously takes something away from Harry's own skill set.
There is a nice nod to Kirby the Werewolf from the novels in the name of bar where the story begins and the overall resolution which is very similar to the fate of Susan in the novels.

Rules of Engagement
A beautiful woman walks in the door and hires Harry, ok sounds like the start of "Summer Knight"
but again it wasn't to be but maybe these echoes of the novels are not a bad thing because
it's better than no references to the books at all.
To underline this a crispy body with nothing but a piece of untouched skin on the victims palm turns up,
yep you know what I am getting at:)
An uber Hellion (Demon) with an understanding between himself and the high "white" council is
chasing  down a rogue lesser hellion (human turned into a demon) whose role it is to corrupt other
humans with a woman smack bang in the middle. As we come to know, Harry can't resist a woman
in distress, it's a running theme throughout the novels and it's demonstrated admirably in this story
when despite being fired he can not walk away and even risks his life to help her.
This was probably my favourite episode off the first DVD, over the top bad guy, Harry at his"soft touch"
best and some nice effects although Morgan being more friendly to Harry just doesn't sit right.

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