Another one of the hidden gems in the netflix repositories is an interesting take on the classic private investigator story – a fun little tv show called The Dresden Files. It’s all about an urban wizard with a mysterious past named Harry Dresden, who lends his services and expertise in the supernatural to the local police force. Although the tv show was canceled after its first season, this entertaining glimpse of what might have been is another one of the reasons I am enthusiastic about the emergence of online video services like Netflix and Hulu.
The first thing you ought to know is that the series benefits from being based heavily on a popular series of books. The author, Jim Butcher, has created a very rich contemporary fantasy world which the filmmakers drew heavily as they wrote the tv show. It should, however, be noted that the film and the books follow different stories. The format of one would not mesh well with the format of the other. While the books take a more Dan Brown style approach to storytelling, spending a long time following a single case, the show presents far shorter cases in quick sequence, very few of which are related or hold considerable bearing on the general story arc. The books and television episodes each provide a unique experience that shows their creators understood the advantages and limitations of the medium they were working in.
The world itself is very rich, and the one unfortunate side effect of cancellation is that the show only just scratched the surface of the material that was available for the writers to work with. Much will be familiar ground to those fans of supernatural drama and paranormal investigation, but there is more than enough unique material to draw you in and keep you entertained. Character development, perhaps, falls on the wayside for the show’s primary characters- but it drags the secondary characters into the spotlight and gives them a chance to shine. As someone who likes that kind of story, I didn’t mind letting Dresden be the dependable rock that the other characters are anchored to.
While it doesn’t have the longevity to hold its own against shows like Buffy, Supernatural or Fringe, it is certainly worth watching if you find yourself between seasons this summer and bored of watching the same re-runs.