We take a deep dive into SyFy’s The Magicians, which was based on the series of novels by Lev Grossman.

There have always been novels and movies about magical schools or worlds that involved children. A few that come to mind are Alice in Wonderland, The Worst Witch, Harry Potter, The Neverending Story, and my first exposure to the fantasy genre, The Chronicles of Narnia.  As children, we all wish we could travel to a magical world where we would be special. Everyone wants to be the chosen one who has a destiny to change the world. These movies, TV shows, and books have inspired many authors to follow in their footsteps. But even when these novels were released and became best sellers, adaptations were not very well executed. In fact, there were some that straight-up sucked. Being butchered by getting cut to pieces or so drastically changed that they barely resembled the source material.  But every once in a while one of these adaptions would hit pay dirt. 

One of these was a book series called “The Magicians” by Lev Grossman. The books would make it to the SyFy network in a TV series that, even though not exactly like the novels still kept the core spirit of it.

Fans of the books have mixed feelings about the show. Some like them both and some just hate the TV show. I can’t weigh in on that debate since I have never read the books. But, I can say that I loved the show. The characters were fascinating; they were complex and had amazing story arcs. They weren’t perfect; they would often make horrible mistakes that would lead to massive repercussions for the entire series. The show took twists and turns that I had never expected and minor characters would be introduced that would have a massive impact on the characters’ journeys.

But, let’s not sit here while I pine over the show, we’re going to dig deep and find the magic of The Magicians in this episode of Gone But Not Forgotten (embedded above)!