In case you hadn't heard.

I wonder when A Dance with Dragons is "coming"?  (Couldn't resist.)

Last Saturday night I found myself nodding in my bed, dozing through ABC's slogging 11 o'clock nightly news and waiting for the midnight premiere of Sam Raimi's Legend of the Seeker, the television adaptation of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth mega-series that we've been reporting on sporadically for the last few months. I began to question my determination to experience this dead-of-night TV event when, as my bedroom clock hit 12:07 a.m., I realized that Daylight Savings Time had ended earlier than I expected and that, at least according to ABC, it was really only 11:07. Nonetheless, I soldiered on, and, despite ABC's annoyingly frequent late night commercial segments, managed to get through the two-hour premiere before passing out.

My past commentary about this show has often been skeptical, usually tongue-in-cheek, and always underscored by a healthy distaste for Terry Goodkind. But despite being a one-man tough crowd, I maintain a certain nostalgia for the first couple of books of the Sword of Truth (before Ayn Rand reared her ugly head and the story was merely an R-rated recycling of standard fantasy tropes, comfortably predictable and suitable for a lazy Friday evening). More than that, I hoped that a quality fantasy series might rejuvenate the genre as a viable television market.

My hopes weren't dashed by the premiere, but Mr. Raimi and Co. have a lot of work left to do if they intend to push the envelope with this series.

On the positive side, the production value was high; Mr. Raimi has come a long way since Xena and Hercules.  The settings were believable, the special effects high-quality (for television), and the costuming was exquisite. 

The actors were enthusiastic but didn't have much to work with. Being the first episode, the writers had a lot of backstory to cover and a lot of worldbuilding to do, which often led to flavorless dialogue that was awkwardly expository.  They did manage to build tension and create something of a sense of mystique, but above all the series opener showed an abundance of potential, as yet unfulfilled.

We'll see if tonight's episode is sharper.

Mark your calendars, Terry Goodkind fans: Disney's television series based on Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, Legend of the Seeker, premieres on your local ABC affiliate this Saturday, November 1.  Check the official website for local channels and times.  (In the Boston area, it starts at midnight on Channel 5.)

Despite the creepy feeling that I typically get when exposed to most of Mr. Goodkind's work, I'll be there, red pen in hand, ready for some Objectivist action/adventure. Review to follow.

In the meantime, those of you who can't wait until Saturday can check out an early review of the two-hour premiere episode by the Hollywood Reporter.

Continuing in our Legend of the Seeker coverage, here's an article from Cinema Blend concerning the most recent casting updates for the series, which premieres on ABC on November 1, 2008. 

Cinema Blend was one of the many sites covering the Seeker panel at Comic Con, and summed up the theme rather wryly: "If you're a fan of the books, prepare to be miserable. If you're a fan of Sam Raimi or Xena: Warrior Princess, get ready to relive the syndicated television fantasy magic of the mid-90s."

Already much-cited around the SFF blogosphere, Suvudu reported from Comic-Con in San Diego last week that a panel was held on the long-rumored television series based on Terry Goodkind's fantasy series The Sword of Truth.  Renamed 'Legend of the Seeker,' the main roles have already been cast.  Here's Suvudu's initial report on the panel:

Terry Goodkind, the author of the bestselling The Sword of Truth series, visited Comic-Con today with director Sam Raimi and those who produced the television shows Xena and Hercules. Together as a panel, they laid out their plans for adapting Wizard's First Rule into a 22-episode season to air on ABC via Disney.

I will be posting a lot more news on this in the forthcoming days, but I wanted to share with Goodkind fans that the name of the ABC series is Legend of the Seeker and it will begin November 1, 2008. Richard Cypher and Kahlen have been cast, but today Sam Raimi announced the casting of Zedd. The actor playing the wizard Zedd is Bruce Spence, who had minor roles in LOTR: Return of the King and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith but who has decades of acting experience.

More to come in the next few days!

Bruce Spence played the Mouth of Sauron in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and the Utapau representive (the weird alien Obi-Wan talks to after arriving on the planet in search of General Grievous) in Episode III.  He also played the Trainman in The Matrix Revolutions, in case you were wondering.  The other two main leads are relatively unknown, at least to me.

The fact that Sam Raimi is directing seems promising, but the Disney/ABC thing still bothers me.  I'm not a Terry Goodkind fan, but I don't like to see fantasy done badly, and it still seems unlikely that as massive and graphic a novel as Wizard's First Rule could be done well on network television, even in 22 episodes.  The rumor that the title was changed to "Legend of the Seeker" from "Wizard's First Rule" to avoid offending religious viewers who have a problem with "sorcery," if true, confirms my fear that the writers and the network are all too willing to compromise story for the sake of avoiding potential brouhaha.  The Sword of Truth, as a series, is potentially offensive from start to finish: even putting the overt Objectivist theme of the books aside, the storyline regularly includes graphic violence, often at the same time as sexual content.  Wizard's First Rule alone, if I remember correctly, involves a scene featuring Darken Rahl, the primary antagonist, participating in a dark ritual too disgusting to mention this soon after lunch.

Take away every part of these books that is likely to offend someone seriously and you're left with a derivative fantasy story unlikely to be improved upon by being adapted for network television.

But I'm willing to be proven wrong, and of course I'll be watching.  I'm going to make CJ sit down and watch it with me, whether she wants to or not.  We'll keep you updated on this, as we have in the past, complete with scathing commentary.

Update: Cinemablend.com has a fuller report of what took place on the Legend of the Seeker panel at San Diego Comic-Con, including Terry Goodkind's comments and Sam Raimi's intentions for the show's format and style.

Update: My friend Bill pointed out that I'm more familiar with the casting than I thought.  The official website states that Craig Parker, who you might know as Haldir from The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, has been cast as Darken Rahl, the main villain.  The guy who played Captain Typho, Queen Amidala's bodyguard in Star Wars Episodes II and III, has also been cast to play Chase.

George Martin himself posted the latest on the proposed HBO adaptation of A Game of Thrones:

The latest news on HBO front is that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have turned in the second draft of the pilot script for A GAME OF THRONES, and their rewrite is presently being read and evaluated by the powers-that-be at HBO. In other words, it's the normal process, which is long and often slow. So far, the reports are good, and HBO seems to like what they're seeing... but no, there's no greenlight yet, A GAME OF THRONES remains a script in development, not a series in production.

Read the full post here.

For those of you wondering about the rumored HBO production of George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, The Wertzone has a useful round-up of the official facts to date:

The deal for HBO to option the television rights to A Song of Ice and Fire was ongoing in 2006 and concluded in January 2007, when GRRM announced the news on his website. Subsequent blog entries confirmed that the writing of the pilot script had commenced. Prior to the start of the Writer's Guild of America Strike in November 2007, writer-producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss had completed a pilot script which GRRM had signed off on. This script had been passed to HBO, who were considering it and running budget estimates for the series at the time that the strike began. As with all Hollywood television projects, work on the adaption was suspended until the strike concluded in mid-February 2008.

Essentially, since HBO's option has yet to expire and the writers' strike has concluded, there is still a very real possibility of it happening.  Wertzone goes on to describe the proposed scope of the project:

No final decision has been made but the tentative plan is for HBO to adapt A Song of Ice and Fire as a series of 13-episode television seasons (potentially seven seasons in length, one for each novel). Whilst the project would be high-budget, it would not be as expensive as HBO's previous major costume drama, Rome, and would probably be filmed in Eastern Europe or perhaps New Zealand due to the lowered production costs.

As always, take anything you read on the Internet with a grain of salt: although Werzone seems to have based their information primarily on official sources, nothing is official until you hear it from either GRRM or HBO.