January 17, 2016 – Book Snacks

Shadowhunters. The time has finally come! After months upon months of waiting for its release, the first episode of the Shadowhunters TV show, based off of the bestselling The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, came out on Netflix—and naturally I had to watch it! I’ve seen tons of posts lately from other bloggers sharing their thoughts on the first and/or second episode, so I decided, why not? I have a lot of thoughts to share on it, so let’s get started.

Let’s start with the best and good parts, shall we?

Castings and Characters

Simon WAS PERFECT. I must admit, I wasn’t completely sold on Alberto Rosende (the actor) at first, but after seeing him in the first episode, I gotta say, he’s great. Fingers crossed that the great acting will continue!

Simon and Clary’s friendship was sweet! Simon and Clary got along really well, and I really liked how the two actors pulled off their friendship.

Alec‘s portrayal by Alexander (CORRECTION: Matthew) Daddario was really great. Mostly it’s just that Alec was basically everything I imagined him to be like! Protective of Jace and Isabelle, hostile to Clary. Can’t wait to see more of him as the show continues.

As for Isabelle (Emeraude Toubia), I have to admit that I was expecting her to be more, I don’t know, hostile and more angry. I feel like the show tamed her down a bit more in comparison with the books. I really liked the actress who played her, though! And although some of her lines were terrible, I liked her parts well enough. (She could still kick butt, that’s for sure.)

Alan Van Sprang shone through as Valentine! He wasn’t exactly how I pictured him, but he turned out to be pretty good.

Jocelyn (Maxim Roy), too, was alright. I was kind of? skeptical of both her and Valentine’s casting, but she turned out to be alright as well. (But why on earth did she give Clary a stele??)

Plot

The Pandemonium scenes were really good! Not horrible, at least. Especially the part where Jace, Alec and Isabelle was hunting down the demon (though what was the use of Isabelle’s wig when she takes it off anyway?)

To be honest I’m not quite sure how I feel yet about the inclusion of the mundane blood thing going on, but for now I’m just gonna place it with the good parts of the episode, because, well, it wasn’t necessarily a bad addition. Obviously there has to be some changes where the plot’s concerned to not make it identical to the book.

Having Luke as a policeman was an interesting idea! I wasn’t sure if I’d like it, when I first heard of it, but now it doesn’t seem to be that bad.

I feel like there’s more I have to say about the storyline and everything, but… my memory kind of sucks right now?

Where things became ‘meh’

So.. Maureen is friends with Simon and Clary, and is the same age as them now? Not sure how I feel about this either. I suppose it’s not exactly a bad thing, but it has me questioning as to where it will lead.

The special effects. More specifically, the portal. I’ve been seeing talk about how the show’s on a low budget and everything, but really? Was that the best they could do? Again, it wasn’t BAD persay, but it could’ve been better.

Magnus Bane… what even happened? I’m not even sure how to explain this one. His character just seemed so.. wrong somehow? Maybe? I don’t know. (I seem to be repeating ‘I don’t know’ really often, but oh well…)

The institute is now full of people and really modernized… not sure how I feel about this??

Reasons for angry stomping and lots of frowns:

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE DIALOGUE. Gah. Sometimes I was able to ignore it, but there were several times where the dialogue became cheesy and cliché as hell. I cringe just thinking about some of them.. PLEASE MAKE THIS BETTER, I BEG YOU. (Don’t ask to whom I’m begging… I don’t know, maybe the gods of TV shows?? #Totallymakessense)

The acting. NOT ALL of the acting, mind you. Most specifically I mean the delivery of lines from Dom Sherwood and occasionally other actors. But mostly Dominic, who plays Jace. I swear, the way he says his lines makes me cringe. Don’t ask why, because I can’t really pinpoint the reason… but let’s just say right now I can’t seem to fully accept him as Jace. I really hope he improves as the show goes on…

No chemistry between Kat and Dom. Dominic looked like he’s in pain half the time anyway and had terrible lines, but still. None. Nada. If there was any, I was oblivious to it. Which is quite a shame! There was a lot of places where the movie went wrong, but on-screen chemistry wise, Movie-Clary (Lily Collins) and Movie-Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower) were great. Or at least, pretty decent. So it was kind of sad to see that the show lacked this. Having said that, I’m not too sad seeing how this is only the first episode. BUT STILL.

What happened to the weapons?!! Those seraph blades look like cheap plastic lightsabers.. and just… no. What happened to the naming and all of that? Grrrr.

Phew…I think that’s mostly it! At least, that’s all that currently pops into my brain. The show has been getting some mixed opinions as far as I’ve seen, but to me, it wasn’t horrible. It didn’t follow the book page-for-page, but it did keep some of the main events and key details, and it still was entertaining despite the meh and the bad parts—so I will definitely be continuing the series! Plus, it’s just the first episode, right? Plenty of room for improvement and second chances.