Dresden Files: “Storm Front”

Yeah, I’m a week behind, but I finally watched the “Storm Front” ep of Dresden Files last night.

And … huh.  This is a trimmed-down version of the unaired pilot episode (2 hours), based on the first book in the series.  It’s also a rather strange episode, as a pilot, in terms of showing some earlier series concepts that never quite made it to the regular series.

Spoilers ahead.

1. The episode feels a bit darker, for Harry, than normal.  There’s much greater play of the “Harry killed his uncle (in self-defense) with black magic” bit from the books, which give a lot more depth to the character.
2. Generally speaking, more monsters, more special effects.  The power level is more on par with the books (albeit with the hockey stick and drum stick, both of which are delightful modifications), and it’s pretty nicely done.  I wonder if the decision to tone down some of the flashiness was story/concept-driven, or just cost-driven.
3. There’s more with Susan (the reporter) — even though it’s sort of in media res, rather than a developing relationship as in the books.
4. While Bianca doesn’t quite monster out (to the extent she does in the books), her presence is much more menacing than what we see in the more “normal” episodes.
5. The Council takes a much bigger role here — both in terms of Morgan being the warden/enforcer from the book, and in terms of there being a council member actually in town, doing most of the threatening lines toward Harry.  She was obviously meant to be an ongoing foil for him; I don’t regret her vanishing, but I’m a bit sorry that a lot of the Council bits have vanished with her (aside from Morgan).
6. The Blue Beetle shows up briefly (and oddly) in one scene, but most of the time, Harry’s driving an old jeep (which change was made, evidently, to make shooting different angles in the vehicle easier).
7. No sign of Bob — but that may have been intentional.  As it stands, this ep is a bit offbeat from (and out of sync with) the series, but it doesn’t utterly contradict anything in it.  If Bob is in the 2-hour original, it’s likely in his book form — a disembodied air spirit who lives in a skull (i.e., with no actor to give face or shape), which would contradict in form and origin the Bob from the show.
8. The story has been heavily modified to fit into a one hour time slot (even trimmed down from two).  I’m actually impressed that, even though it ended quite differently, it still was fairly coherent and worked well.  Of course, there aren’t so many Dresden books that you could regularly convert each novel into a single episode, but it would be interesting to see them mine multiple aspects of each novel for the overall series.

For the most part, I really liked the episode, and I look forward to seeing the full-blow pilot (rumored to be included on the DVD season set).  It ties more closely to the books than the series does, and in generally good ways.  Which is not to say that I’m not enjoying the show, duh, just that this gives a glimpse of some stuff that might have been, but, for whatever reason, never was.