The Magicians: Season One

Lev Grossman's bestselling 2009 novel The Magicians (and its two sequels) offered an ingenious melding of elements from the Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia series with a real-world setting where troubled, anxious, and sometimes petty young adults discover that they have the potential to master magic. In this Syfy-aired adaptation, the main characters attend Brakebills, an exclusive academy that is basically an American graduate school of magic, complete with all the drinking, drugs, and sex of real college. Best friends Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) and Julia Wicker (Stella Maeve) are invited to take the entrance exam; Quentin is accepted and joins a kind of co-ed frat of flamboyant students, but Julia is rejected and she bands with a reckless group of rogue magicians (where she discovers just how deadly magic can be). All learn that the Fillory and Further fantasy adventure books they read as children were actually based on truth—only tamed and sanitized for young minds. Now, a dark, dangerous power known as "The Beast" is coming to kill them, forcing everyone to work together. Part of the fun of the series is how it challenges the idealized portraits of other YA heroes and heroines, presenting characters who are plagued by the same bad decisions, hormonally-charged emotions, and selfishness and pettiness of real college kids on their own for the first time. Presenting all 13 episodes from the 2016 debut season, extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette, deleted scenes, and a gag reel. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)