The trouble with Harry

For months, readers have been advising me that Independence author Jim Butcher's popular Harry Dresden novels were coming to the small screen, thanks to the SciFi Channel and Nicolas Cage's production company. Now that the series has arrived -- the first two episodes air at 7 and 8 p.m. CT Sunday on SciFi -- well, color me confused. Who exactly is this TV show for, anyway?

  Is it for the hardcore fans of Butcher's books about a wizard-detective who solves the cases the cops can't crack? If so, then it is clear that many Dresdenphiles are disappointed with what they saw when the first episode aired last week.

  “He's pretty much been made everything he's NOT,” one fan posted about the TV version of Harry at the Jim-Butcher.com bulletin board. “I'll keep watching, but it's not nearly as great as it could have been.”

  Or was it meant for a wider audience, fandom be damned? Well, then those viewers are going to feel let down, too, compared to earlier SciFi programs (“Eureka,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Lost Room”). The first episode of “Dresden Files” was a mess, frankly, not to mention a tad bewildering. Had I not done some journalistic boning up on this Harry Dresden fellow, I would have been totally lost.

  Son of a magician, Dresden is the only wizard listed in the Chicago phonebook, a fact cleverly revealed in the show's minimalist opening. Harry (played by Paul Blackthorne, whom you may recognize as a baddie from season three of “24”) solves crimes that are too tough for the CSIs, drawing upon a vast knowledge of ancient spells and hoodoo, and if that's not “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” enough for you, he draws upon an older British mentor for help, a sardonic ghost named Bob (Terrence Mann), who lives with Harry for reasons not yet explained to viewers.

  Harry is often called onto cases handled by Lt. Connie Murphy (Valerie Cruz), a Chicago cop. That's another mystery: Does Murphy believe this guy is in touch with the supernatural, and if not, why does she keep requesting his help and letting him compromise sensitive crime investigations?

  I was also curious to know why Harry drives around Chicago in a Jeep that looks like it was stolen off the set of “M*A*S*H.” There's a great answer -- his wizardly powers are so potent that they would instantly fry the innards of today's computerized cars -- but it wasn't until I talked with Butcher earlier this month that I learned this.

  In our conversation, and in “Butcher Block” podcasts taped by his friend Fred Hicks, Butcher expressed his enthusiasm for SciFi's adaptation of his series. He acknowledged that numerous changes were made, but he said the producers of the TV series made them in consultation with him and in the same spirit in which Harry and the gang were originally conceived. Butcher has sat in on taping of the show in Toronto and is taking part in some of the show promotion.

  SciFi seems to have thought through the marketing of “The Dresden Files,” giving it decent publicity and a killer time slot, leading into the most talked-about show on the network, “Battlestar Galactica,” which moved from Fridays to Sundays to give “Dresden” a boost.

  But the first episode shows classic signs of having come through a different butcher, the kind who grinds sausage. It is not the original pilot, which was supposed to be two hours long and based on Butcher's first Dresden novel, Storm Front, published in 2000. Rather, this hour looks more like a midseason episode. Besides the character of Bob, one person on the Jim-Butcher.com fan board noted that the episode introduces “Susan, Murphy, the High Council, a High Council associate of Harry's (that they promptly kill off), Harry's father, Harry's mother's tragic death … and that Harry is a less powerful wizard than he might be. The episode is freaking PACKED.”

  The second hour, by contrast, is given a little more air to breathe, so I would recommend watching them both together tonight. (They'll air again next week, when SciFi sticks with reruns opposite the Super Bowl.) This episode is just a good old-fashioned ghost story with some intriguing twists.

  SciFi must be thrilled with the ratings for the first “Dresden Files,” which were a third higher than its usual Sunday-night fare. Even if it's creatively not firing on all cylinders, the network will likely be patient with the show, because it's a genre cable channel and can afford to let it develop and make Dresdenphiles out of us all.