Why You Should Be Watching The Magicians

This week saw the return of The Magicians to television. The show’s second season premiered Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, on SyFy.

The Magicians is the SyFy fantasy drama adaptation of Lev Grossman’s trilogy of novels.

It debuted on SyFy in early 2016 and was renewed before the end of its first season. There’s a lot of television out there to watch, so it’s understandable if you missed it the first time around. We’ve already explained everything you need to know to watch The Magicians‘ second season, but maybe you’d like to know why you should bother.

The Magicians is a show deserving of your attention. Here’s why.

Harry Potter for an older crowd.

The elevator pitch for The Magicians has been that it is Harry Potter if the characters were old enough to drink and Hogwarts was an American university instead of a British boarding school.

Some, particularly Harry Potter fans, hear this and roll their eyes, criticizing the very idea for its derisiveness, but that misses the point. One of the reasons Harry Potter resonated so much with its fans is the way that Harry Potter as a character and the tone of his adventures matured along with the readership.

But then what comes after Harry graduates from Hogwarts? Some of that is answered in Harry Potter in the Cursed Child, which jumps forward in time to reunite with Harry at middle age, but there are no stories of Harry Potter as a young adult who is truly on his own for the first time.

That’s the gap that The Magicians fills in. In part, The Magicians is a coming-of-age story for central protagonist Quentin Coldwater. Quentin’s stunted emotional growth means that he doesn’t come of age until he’s reached college age in Grossman’s novels and graduate school age in the SyFy series. This as opposed to Harry Potter, who was forced to mature whether he wanted to or not in order the deal with the threat of Lord Voldemort.

In the modern era of prolonged adolescence, Quentin’s journey is arguably even better timed for maximum relatability with the 20-something crowd, who may have missed their chance to grow up with Harry Potter. Either way, that’s a crucial age that deserved a fantastic, magical adventure of its own.

The Drama

Anyone who has lived through their early to mid-twenties knows that it is an age primed for drama. That drama often comes when the need to connect with other human individuals crosses paths with the incomplete journey towards self-realization.

The pain and drama of youth aren’t just pieces of The Magicians, they’re cornerstones of the series’ very premise. As Margo explains it’s in a season one episode, there’s a reason why happy people don’t become magicians. Magic is fueled by pain, and the core cast of The Magicians have a pretty deep well to draw from.

While the drama can skirt around the edges of melodrama at times, it’s hardly trite. The characters are in The Magicians are yearning to connect with each other and to find their place in the world. When they end up hurting each other, at times with a seeming inevitability, the pain feels earned.

What happens when you get what you want?

So much of fantasy fiction is about quests, a hero or a party of friends going to great lengths to achieve a goal or retrieve a prize.

The Magicians inverts that idea by beginning the story by giving Quentin Coldwater the only thing he’s ever wanted. Since he was a child, Quentin immersed himself in fantasy worlds and wished that magic was real. Now that he has the unique abilities he’s always dreamed of, what does he do with them?

On the flipside, what happens when you learn the impossible dream is real, but it isn’t for you? That was Julia’s struggle in the first season ofThe Magicians. Now she has a new quest, kill a god, and she’s made a questionable ally in the Beast to accomplish that goal.

When Millennials Rules The World

Learning that magic is real was only the first part of fulfilling Quentin Coldwater’s childhood dreams. The second was learning that there are other worlds and that he was intimately familiar with one of them.

Quentin’s favorite fantasy stories are set in the world of Fillory, a world inspired by C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Quentin learned in The Magicians Season 1 that Fillory was real. Now, not only does he get to go there, but he gets to rule it.

In The Magicians Season 2, Quentin, Alice, Elliot and Margo take over as the kinds and queens of Fillory. After the series of romantic and sexual betrayals that came late in the first season of The Magicians, will these four friends be able to tolerate each other well enough to lead their kingdom?

Something New For Book Readers

If The Magicians Season 1 proved anything it is that this isn’t a series where those who have already read the source material are going to be able to predict every twist and turn.

There were numerous departures from Grossman’s novels, and the SyFy series owned even within the story of the show itself. When the group visits the library in the Neitherlands, the librarian refers to Margo as Janet, which is the character’s name in the novels. When Margo corrects here, the librarian remarks, “This time,” implying that The Magicians TV series is, textual, just one of many versions of the story told in Grossman’s books.

Another twist came in the character of Kady. At first, this seemed to be a new character created just for the SyFy adaptation. A surprise late in the season revealed that she is actually the alter ego of another character from the novels, Asmodeus.

Another character from the books, Josh, seemed to have been cut from the series entirely until he made a surprise appearance later in the series.

In other words, no matter who you are or what your familiarity with The Magicians is, expect a few surprises along the way.