2007’s The Dresden Files disappeared from television quickly, but it delivered a promising supernatural drama that deserved more support from its network.
What Is It?
Harry Dresden—whose mother was a powerful witch—showed promising magical abilities at an early age. After the deaths of his mother and father, his uncle took him in and started to teach him how to use his power. After the mysterious death of his uncle, Harry sets out on his own and starts to advertise as a professional wizard. He also consults with the police on unusual cases, most often working with Lt. Connie Murphy, and relies on the assistance of Hrothbert of Bainbridge (aka Bob), who is a ghost tied to a skull that he owns.
Aired: The Sci Fi Channel, 2007, One Season Totaling 12 Episodes
Cast: Paul Blackthorne, Valerie Cruz, Terrence Mann, Conrad Coates, Raoul Bhaneja
Crew: Hans Beimler (Executive Producer), Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Executive Producer), Nicolas Cage (Executive Producer)
Legacy:
This supernatural drama did not stick around long, but it established an interesting world of magical creatures and could have turned into a sleeper genre entry if it had received more support from its network.
A Closer Look:
This series made a brief appearance on The Sci-Fi Channel in 2007, based on the books by Jim Butcher, though it took plenty of liberties with the source material. It arrived at a time when supernatural dramas were not a dime a dozen like they are today (and before Supernatural had run pretty much every genre trope into the ground), and it developed a small following during its short run. Of course, there were also those who derided the show for the changes it made to the books, and that may have hurt its chances of finding a larger audience. I missed it in its original run but happened to stumble upon it on Tubi TV recently and immediately found myself hooked.
I have never read Jim Butcher’s books (though I have them on my to-read list now), and perhaps that was for the best to fully enjoy the TV adaptation. It delivers an interesting magical world with various factions as well as a set of rules that each are required to follow. It reminded me, to a degree, of 1996’s Kindred: The Embraced (watch for an upcoming post on that), which also established a fascinating and complex setting, and that is what originally drew me in. But in addition, it offered well-developed characters populating the world as well as well-crafted stories. To a degree, this show might seem rather hackneyed to audiences today with many of its well-worn themes, but at the time it came out, The Dresden Files would have counted as a rather fresh supernatural drama.
The cast is essential to this show as well, especially Paul Blackthorne (Arrow), who does a good job of channeling plenty of Philip Marlowe energy into his performance. Terrence Mann (Sense8) is also spot-on as Bob, with him and Blackthorne developing palpable chemistry. Valerie Cruz is important to the mix as Murphy, playing the frustrated detective who slowly starts to buy into Dresden’s unusual world. Claudia Black (Farscape) even stops by for an episode in what looks like was meant to be a recurring role, but sadly the show was cut short before she could have much interaction with the cast.
I understand that the show veered notably from the books and that angered many fans of Jim Butcher’s work. But judging The Dresden Files on its own merits, I consider it quite a good genre entry that could have turned into a classic if given the time to grow. As it is, though, it is yet another one-and-done series cut down by short-sighted network execs.
Cancelled Too Soon?
Yes. This was one of several shows put out by The Sci-Fi Channel in the ’00s that tried to draw in an audience without a Battlestar Galactica-sized budget. It aired on Sunday nights with BSG when the latter show was in its third season, and the ratings were decent for a lower-budget cable entry, but not spectacular. Allegedly, the network execs believed it did not reach the demographic they were looking for, but it certainly did not help that the episodes were aired out of order, making it difficult to follow the developing story arc. Jim Butcher later claimed that the cancellation was in part due to the fact that the show failed to pull in fans of the books because diverged notably from those.
Should It Be Rebooted?
While I would much rather see this show get a revival with the original cast, that seems unlikely at this point, and a ground-up reboot could work for the property. The rights have reverted to Butcher, and if he were to guide the reboot, it could follow more closely to the books and would have plenty of source material to pull from. Fox21 Television Studios optioned the rights in 2018 before they were absorbed in the Disney buyout of Fox. It is unclear if the reboot is still on the development slate, but perhaps Harry Dresden could make a return at some point.
Interesting Facts:
The pilot for the series was originally two hours long and was based on the book Storm Front. But last-minute changes led to it getting cut down to one hour, and it was aired as the eighth episode. To start out the series, The Sci-Fi Channel aired “Birds of a Feather,” which was third in production order. Several more episodes would also air out of order, impacting the story arc of the season.
James Marsters, who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, had the opportunity to audition for the role of Harry Dresden. But he turned it down because he did not want to move to Toronto. He would go on to narrate several of the audiobook editions of The Dresden Files.
Where Can You Watch It?
The entire first season has been released on DVD but has not received the Blu-ray treatment yet. As mentioned above, it is streaming for free (with ads) on Tubi TV as well as Plex and Freevee, and it is included with Prime Video.
