Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

The Magicians: Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

Lewis and Rowling sitting in a tree...

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 17, 2016

The increasingly crowded TV field finds one of its latest wanna-be hit in The Magicians, SyFy's adult-sized take on Harry Potter that comes based on the book series by Lev Grossman. The 13-episode first season has its moments of intrigue and entertainment, lacking polish in places but starting strong before tapering off into a solid and watchable, but not memorable, tale of the magical arts minus Potter's charm but adding in a decidedly mature narrative framework. Even at 13 episodes, the season can feel a bit too condensed in places even as it evolves character arcs and explores primary and tangential story avenues. Most all of it works, some parts more effective than others, but the show can never quite fully rebound from the drop-off after the enormously intriguing premiere episode. Still, satisfaction with the show and the potential for it abounds. The world is richly saturated with good ideas and well built characters, all supported with, by TV standards, quality visual effects that offer a mostly seamless window into the world of the extraordinary.

What's in the box?

Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) is a loner, always lost in the fantasy stories in his favorite book series, Fillory and Further. His best, and only true, friend Julia (Stella Maeve) tries to nudge him out of his shell. She accompanies him to an interview for admittance to graduate school but they both instead find themselves gathered amongst a select few other students, a magical exam before them, testing to gain entrance into Brakebills College, an upstate New York institution of higher...magical...learning. Quentin is accepted, practically with open arms. A despondent Julia is not. As Julia refocuses her spirit and hones her skills, she finds the approval of the mysterious Pete (David Call). Meanwhile, Quentin finds himself immersed in a world he never knew existed. He befriends Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and together, with the help is roommate Penny (Arjun Gupta) and Penny's girlfriend Kady (Jade Tailor), Quentin explores the world of magic but quickly finds its darker side lurking closer than is comfortable.

Comparisons to Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, and to a somewhat lesser, tangential extent X-Men, are inevitable. It's in how the show distinguishes itself, maintains a sense of originality in its copycat framework, that seems the largest driver of its success or failure. For the most part, the show succeeds. The Magicians settles into an almost immediately more obvious maturity and grittiness, particularly comparing to early Potter not simply on the age difference of the students but also themes in relationships, school life, interaction with the "outside" world, and the conjuring and delivery of the magic itself. But the magic. The show is built around magic, and while it's there in abundance, what's missing is that less physically tangible and more dramatically engaging narrative magic. Potter represents escapism at its best, a truly imaginative saga of surprise, wonder, flavor, and novelty. The Magicians doesn't quite reach that same plane. While the story is more involved and up-to-date, more raw and relatable, it lacks that distinctive flair. The two series aren't really all that similar once one gets beyond the base concepts and settings. The Magicians is, really, made for Potter fans who have read the books and grown up into the real world but still wish to find an avenue to satisfy their lingering cravings for something magical, but something more their speed in 2016 and beyond.

The show's lifeblood is its characters, and while they're many and varied, the more narrow focus on the main half a dozen or so, and another half a dozen or so secondaries, is thorough and impressively complex. Protagonist Quentin Coldwater is the quintessential loner, but not a nerd. He doesn't look that part, but his obsession with the Fantasy book series and aptitude for magic are relatable and believable, respectively. He's more off the beaten path than he is blazing his own trail, more following off on a tangent of societal norms and structures rather than redefining them. Julia and Alice play very well against him, each, in a way, representing either side of his coin in both their developed character arcs and in more subtle ways, too, that viewers will discover as the season unfolds and the characters develop. Beyond the core characters, the show proves richly diverse in the types of individuals (albeit many of whom are broader stereotypes but better developed below the surface) who populate the school and the world around it, and more interestingly the magic they perform (or at least study). The show establishes types very well and uses most everything at its disposal to good effect, further adding to the sense of reward that exists in a show like this beyond its cruder structural components.

The following episodes comprise season one. Summaries are courtesy of the Blu-ray packaging. Some spoilers follow.

Disc One:

• Unauthorized Magic: Best friends Quentin and Julia, are mysteriously recruited to take an entrance exam to Brakebills University, a secret institution for magical pedagogy.
• The Source of Magic: Quentin is distraught as he faces expulsion for his involvement in an otherworldly attack on Brakebills.
• Consequences of Advanced Spellcasting: Quentin and Julia have an unexpected - and volatile - reunion. Penny is overwhelmed by the power of his own psychic abilities.
• The World in the Walls: Quentin wakes up in a mental hospital and must set his panic aside. Julia is hurt after her fallout with Quentin and commits to learning more powerful spells with the Hedge Witches.

Disc Two:

• Mendings, Major and Minor: Although everyone should be training for the upcoming Welters tournament, the students are each dealing with a personal distraction that keeps them from staying focused.
• Impractical Applications: The first-year students are put through the Trials, a series of unconventional and emotional tests.
• The Mayakovsky Circumstance: The first-years meet an uncompromising professor at Brakebills South who pushes their boundaries, both in magic and in their perosnal lives.
• The Strangled Heart: Brakebills is thrown into chaos when Penny is violently attacked by someone they thought was a friend while Quentin tries to find a connection to The Beast.
• The Writing Room: Quentin, Alice, Eliot and Penny travel to England to Plover's estate in search of a missing magic button.

Disc Three:

• Homecoming: Penny travels to the world of The Neitherlands where he soon finds it's not as friendly as he thought. Quentin and Alice must work together, no matter how uncomfortable, to save him.
• Remedial Battle Magic: Quentin and the others learn battle magic as they prepare to take on The Beast in Fillory. But this challenge leads to building frustrations...pushing some apart and others together.
• Thirty-Nine Graves: After a night of drinking, the students wake up to foggy memories and a healthy dose of regret. But there's no time for talking out feelings - their very lives depend on getting to The Neitherlands as soon as possible.
• Have You Brought Me Little Cakes?: Using time magic, Quentin and Julia have arrived in Fillory and now must try to catch up with the rest who are more than 70 years ahead of them, searching for The Beast.

The Magicians: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Magicians: Season One debuts on Blu-ray with good, albeit rather basic and in no way noteworthy, 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer. Light noise is persistent. Softer and smudgier corners are common, but not excessively frequent. Detailing is fine if not a bit underwhelming. Basic definition along basic surfaces -- clothes and faces -- find enough textural intimacy to satisfy but, this far into the format game, not particularly impress. Image clarity is good, and certainly some of the rougher and well weathered areas around campus, in the city, or in the fictional countryside find a healthy amount of tangible texturing. Colors are found in a rather wide range, including many desaturated, bleak, and dreary locales, offset by a more neutral palette at the school and something of a more hyperactive, but not obscene, level of pop and punch in some of the show's more fantastical locations. Black levels don't stray too far from accurate and flesh tones are fine within any scene's given color context. Beyond the aforementioned noise, no serious ailments appear in large quantities. This is an overall plus transfer from Universal.

The Magicians: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Magicians: Season One features a dependable and, when necessary, healthily active DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Atmospherics are frequently immersive, with plenty of activity in various locations -- city streets, at parties -- that draw the listener into the series' locations. The back channels carry plenty of the load, but in a balanced, agreeable fashion. Musical definition is strong, yielding positive clarity across the series' rather unique score. Spacing is again excellent, and the low end is helpful in adding weight to the proceedings. Background music at parties plays with that unmistakable, and realistic, mild muddiness, whether right in the room or heard pounding through drywall, emanating down a dorm room hall. Scattered action scenes and various crashes and magical happenings play with plenty of precise, room-filling, and speaker-specific clarity, aggression, and placement. Dialogue is at the center of it all, flowing from the front-middle channel with top-tier prioritization and clarity.

The Magicians: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Magicians: Season One contains deleted scenes on all three discs and two additional extras on disc three. A UV digital copy code is included with purchase.

• Deleted Scenes (1080p): Disc One: Scenes from "Unauthorized Magic" (0:10), "The Source of Magic" (1:18), and "Consequences of Advanced Spellcasting" (0:40). Disc Two: Scenes from "Mendings, Major and Minor" (1:07), "Impractical Applications" (2:25), "The Mayakovsky Circumstance" (0:50), "The Strangled Heart" (0:20), and "The Writing Room" (0:23). Disc Three: Scenes from "Homecoming" (1:23), "Remedial Battle Magic" (2:13), "Thirty-Nine Graves" (1:06), and "Have You Brought Me Little Cakes?" (1:41).
• Gag Reel (1080p, 8:09).
• The World of The Magicians (1080p, 13:51): A look at the similarities to and differences from the books, character qualities, the advantage of the TV medium, the show's technical construction, production design, sets and locations, visual effects, the villain, the origins of magic, and more.

The Magicians: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Magicians may be a clone of more popular stories on its surface, but there's enough separation beyond the basics to give the show its own name and cadence. Beyond its obvious connections and glaring similarities is a darker, adult-oriented look at magic and the people who dabble in it. Characters are well designed and performances are strong. It's an intriguing show that never quite lives up to its captivating opening episode but that does hold enough interest and forward momentum to keep audiences happy, though maybe not enthusiastic, about the prospects of following the season to conclusion and awaiting what season two has in store. The Magicians: Season One delivers solid video and audio. Supplements are a little bland, but it's at least not bare-bones. Recommended.