Watch This Show: Legend of the Seeker

I have a few of these TV show recommendation articles in various stages of completeness kicking around but I was inspired to finish up with this one because recently we’ve been getting bits of news on season 2 of this show. As the title suggests the show I am writing about this time ‘round is Legend of the Seeker.

LotS (as the kids are calling it these days) is a fantasy-action-drama about a young man who discovers his destiny is to be a great hero and defeat an evil villain. He’s helped on this quest by a magical sword, and wise old man that he thought was a crazy loner who turns out to be a powerful wizard, and a beautiful woman who has powers of her own. So yeah, generalized it sounds like standard Hero’s Journey stuff but it’s so much more.

Getting more specifically into the premise the young man that discovers his destiny is Richard Cypher who discovers he is destined to be The Seeker of Truth (luckily they just use “Seeker” rather than the full title for most of the season) a warrior that is chosen only in times of great need. That great need is brought upon by Darken Rahl who is a not so nice dude. Which reminds me, if you’re naming your child and you choose “Darken”, you’re kinda forcing them to go into the whole being evil business aren’t you? But I digress. The Seeker of course has help in his quest in the form of a Wizard of the First Order (I guess the most powerful type of wizard) named Zedd and a Confessor (confessors can, with a touch, make a person do anything the confessor wants) named Kahlan.

It’s based (possibly loosely from my extensive research) on a series of books that I have yet to read, though they are waiting for me, collectively called the Sword of Truth books. The Sword of Truth is the aforementioned magical sword. Apparently the books are really good but I cannot pass judgement on them until I get much more than 5 pages into the first book. They did however spawn a pretty fucking entertaining TV show.

It makes sense given that it is being made by some of the same people that made two other pretty entertaining shows: Hercules and Xena. I think it’s time for me to confess something to you dear reader. I was a big fan Hercules and Xena back in the day. And not just because Kevin Sorbo was so dreamy. Fun factoid: Michael Hurst who played Hercules’ side kick Iolaus has a role in this series for an episode as well. Oh, and Ted Raimi is also a guest star in it and you should recognize him, amongst other things, as Joxer the Mighty. Again with the digressing. The connection to Hercules/Xena might also give it bonus points as well; what the hell am I saying “might”, it definitely does.

I do have to say though it is an improvement over those shows and that could be because it is adapted from those books. It has good stories week to week and the overall arc of the season is great too. The action is decent too. So, if you’ve read this far and you’re interested in a very entertaining fantasy show then you should really watch Legend of the Seeker.

P.S.: EXTRME GEEK MOMENT

This show brings up an anecdote that will let all of you know how huge of a geek I am. My sister and I were both at different points in the season and were talking about it when my sister said, “Did you know that Darken Rahl [the evil villain in LotS] was Haldir in Lord of the Rings?” Any normal person’s reaction would’ve been along the lines of: “Who’s Haldir again?” or “OK, I care because…?” but as an extreme-geek my reaction was genuinely excited to discover this factoid and my response was, “HOLY SHIT, YOU’RE RIGHT, NO WAY!” Now, I’m not the hugest geek in the world because if I was my reaction would’ve been to respond, in proper Elvish, “Duh!”