Scottie Copasetic With so many lame CSI, desperate house wives, & hospital dramas on TV - it's nice to have SyFy fantasy shows to watch. If u read books fine... Don't watch the show & give it a poor rating. Just keep reading books in the corner. Movies & TV never satisfy the quality of the book reader. That's no reason to cancel a decent show. No more Shadow Hunters, Emerald City & Shannarah Chronicles to watch because cable /satellite TV is dead! Thankfully Lucifer got picked up by Netflix!

nelson-pip I have to say I enjoy this show more than the books. It has a strong following and the only complaint is a indecisive use of modern American slang and fantasy formal language. I hope this gets picked up for a 3rd season by SyFy channel. I ran across this on netflix and do not watch MTV or Spike, I think with a proper home this would build as a long term popular show. The female characters are interesting and powerful which is unusual in fantasy with Male characters

jayyce004 I read all the books many years ago, and the producers of this show completely ruined the series (at least for television).. Its just another attempt to force down our throats women are super strong and even though they are 115lbs they can take down 6-10 250lb burly men. It promotes homosexuality, feminism, and interracial relationships and the MAJORITY of the cast is definitely minority... Another anti white show that thankfully failed...

medwards-85263 It has taken me a long time to get around to writing this review, as I was constantly hoping things might get better and I might come to love this series. Unfortunately is has not, and hence, here is my rather disgruntled opinion. Terry Brooks is a justifiably much lauded author, who has penned numerous best selling novels since his first Shannara novel came out in 1977. Whilst the first book, The Sword of Shannara, is, in all honestly, a well written but blatant 'homage' to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, (albeit with a little Celtic mythology and a neat idea about this fantasy world being set far in our future after an unspecified apocalyptic collapse of human civilisation) from the second novel, The Elfstones of Shannara, Brooks demonstrated a highly innovative take on epic fantasy. As a young man The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings was my first experience of fantasy writing, Shannara was my second. For me personally only the work of David and Leigh Eddings is more gripping, entertaining and invigorating than that of Brooks. So it was that when I first heard that a screen version of these wonderful novels was finally actually happening and not just rumoured, I was naturally very hopeful, but also apprehensive, especially when I realised the series was being made for air on MTV. When I heard that Brooks was personally involved in helping the construction of the world, narrative and scripts, I sighed with relief. Good, surely now this will be fine, right? Wrong.The truly great thing about the Shannara novels is how they concentrate on the psychological as well as physical impact of magic on, not only the victims of magical attacks, but the users of any form of magic.The books are dark, full of lots of twists and turns, and often laced with heavy and justified paranoia. For instance the main 'good' magic wielders in the series are those few remaining members of the ancient 'Druid Order', but these people often turn out to be hiding the full truth of the missions they ask people to undertake, or outright lying and manipulating people and their emotions in order to meet the ends they wish to pursue. Some small fragments of the intensity and originality of the books series does remain in this show, which is why I have given it a rating of three stars instead of one, which was my initial instinct. However, the show has been highly stylised and tailored to appeal to an imagined audience of fevered 'Twilight' or 'Hunger Games' teen fans, desperate for yet more melodramatic fairytale nonsense. The use of modern 'teen-appeal' popular music, MTV style editing techniques and focus on fashion, style and 'pretty' actors rather than depth of story, well rounded characterisation and building a sense of the historical depth and richness of the world unfortunately serves to render this programme nothing but style over substance. One of the most anticipated moments from the excellent book Elfstones, when the horde of demons finally break through the magical barrier of the Forbidding and flood in an almost unstoppable tide of destruction to the highly defended raised Elf city of Arborlon, a sequence that takes several brilliant action packed chapters of the book to elucidate, here is whipped through in what seemed like about five minutes, and looked to little more than a bunch of badly costumed dancers prat-falling about in a forest. I won't go into any more of this, as all any reader of this diatribe needs to really know is do not bother watching this show, unless you want to laugh at something naff. Read the books instead, even the very worst of which is over a thousand times better than this dire dross.