Directors:
Dean Devlin, Marc Roskin, Jonathan Frakes, John Harrison, Tawnia Mckiernanby
Peter Askin, Starring: Rebecca Romijn, Christian Kane, John Kim, Lindy Booth,
John Larroquetten. Fantasy TV series, US, 2014, 420mins, Cert 12.
Following
on from three original ‘LIBRARIAN’ TV-movies featuring Noah Wyle as Flynn
Carsen ‘The Librarian’ (singular), the premise was then expanded to introduce 3
new ‘Librarians’ and their ‘Guardian’ as they try to protect the world from
magical artefacts too dangerous to be left in the outside world.
Based
underneath the Metropolitan Library, a bibliographic depository with
TARDIS-like properties holds a vast collection of magical treasures. Helping the
new ‘Librarians’ in their quests is the delightfully grouchy Jenkins (John Larroquette) the Library’s
caretaker/butler. Whilst the original Librarian Carsen mainly takes a backseat,
the new Librarians consist of Jacob (Christian Kane), an art
history/architecture expert masquerading as an Oklahoma manual labourer,
Cassandra (Lindy Booth) a mathematician who has sensory hallucinations caused
by a brain tumour, and Ezekiel, a professional thief. Tasked with protecting
the Librarians is Colonel Eve Baird (Rebecca Romijn), formerly a
counter-terrorism agent for NATO.
Whilst
the magical artefacts gathering and neutralising premise sounds a lot like
WAREHOUSE 13, accusations that THE LIBRARIANS plagiarised that show are unjust
because the original LIBRARIAN movies which outlined the basic premise pre-date
WAREHOUSE 13 (case dismissed!)
The
series derives a great deal of fun from spinning riffs on well-known legends
such as King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone whilst the bad guys are headed
up by ‘Max Headroom’ himself, Matt Frewer, as Dulaque, the leader of the
Serpent Brotherhood (boo- hiss).
The
individual episodes in season one are forsooth in truth a bit hit and miss.
Some suffer pacing issues and feel overly padded out, but when the series finds
it stride, it breezes along with its pleasantly entertaining tongue-in-cheek
yarns. Two of my favourite episodes were directed by Jonathan (STAR TREK: THE
NEXT GENERATION) Frakes. Episode 4: “...And Santa's Midnight Run" features
that scourge of the ‘Deadites’ Bruce Campbell as Santa himself. And episode 6:
“...And the Fables of Doom” which also features another former STAR TREK alumni
René Auberjonois
from DEEP SPACE NINE as a small-town librarian. Reading from an ancient magical
storybook the townsfolk, and indeed the ‘Librarians’ (apart from Ezekiel)
are slowly taken over by classic fairy tales and start to take on the personas
of fairy tale characters. (A possible inspiration for ONCE UPON A TIME
perhaps?) And Rob Zombie’s rebooted ‘Michael Myers’ Tyler Mane swaps his
Halloween mask for that of a Minotaur who stalks the cast through a labyrinth
in the third episode: “...And the Horns of a Dilemma.”
So why only the 3-star review then? Well, the
main flaw for me was that I found I just couldn’t seem to really fully engage
with any of the characters (except for John Larroquette’s Jenkins who for me steals
every scene he appears in). In particular, John Kim’s lock-picking ‘Ezekiel Jones’
has no back story whatsoever and is a one-note character I struggled (and
failed) to warm to. Although the cast clearly all put in a considerable shift
in their respective roles, they just seemed to lack the necessary ingredients
to carry me along with them. (I felt more sympathy for the anthropomorphic
sword ‘Excalibur’ if truth be told)
This
was probably the main reason I didn’t bother with season two when it eventual
re-surfaced on the Syfy channel.
But in
fairness, as a light piece of undemanding escapism that you can watch whilst
having your dinner, you could do a lot worse. So perhaps THE LIBRARIANS doesn’t
quite deserve to be shelved just yet.
Footnote,
(or bookmark), the screener discs led me quite the merry little dance. Not only
were there no menus, but I discovered the episodes weren’t in chronological
order but rather scattered randomly across the 4 discs. (Hopefully this won’t
be a ‘feature’ on retail copies).
***(OUT OF 5)
Paul
Worts
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