Catching Up: Legend of the Seeker- Bounty

First, an update: ABC has moved The Goode Family to Friday nights, presumably to let it die the quietest possible death a show could experience (on a Summer weekend). Consequently, my coverage of the show is changing days. It may last through the hot months or it may just disappear like so many shows this year. Either way, I wouldn't expect to see Mike Judge's animation portfolio expand into the Autumn.

And now, back to business. Three episodes (the pilot counts as two) into Legend of the Seeker and I can't say my initial assessment changed much. We don't really get much depth or intrigue until the fourth episode, but that'll have to wait until next week. For now, we've got a pretty transparent betrayal and redemption plot that, like every other backstabber-makes-good story in TV history, fills out an hour with little consequence for the larger arc.

But hey, it's Ted Raimi! Good ol' reliable Ted has been involved in many of his brother Sam's projects in film and television. He had recurring roles on Hercules and Xena, plus he's had a cameo in all three Spider-Man movies. This is not to say Ted Raimi hasn't had a busy career outside of his brother's shadow. He's had dozens of roles in film and TV, including a regular spot on SeaQuest DSV. In this episode of Legend of the Seeker he plays a map maker who uses some funny alchemy to craft three Seeker-finding parchments for local bounty hunters. Various traps ensue.

One of the things I'm already starting to find annoying about Seeker is how much of a goody-two-shoes Richard has turned out to be. He spent much of the pilot being an alternately genial and angry DIY-type. I thought this was good enough as a basis for his character. He had the right mix of reluctance and passion to make him interesting. Now all of a sudden he's the hero of everything with infinite patience and enough smugness to out-do a bus full of crusading celebrities. If just once Richard's naive save-the-world-by-populism approach resulted in some serious damage it might make the story more interesting. For now, every episode seems to be about justifying the dated concept of heroism that defines his character.

This episode's subject of Richard's crusade to nurse every injured vole in the forest back to health is a blonde maiden with a very prominent lisp. She begs Richard to go on a monster-slaying quest, only to trick him and chain him to a cart so she can collect the bounty on his head (or at least exchange him for her imprisoned brother). It doesn't take long for the Daharans to prove that they really are just an army of stock villains who love evil for its own sake, so Miss Lispy turns into a revolutionary and we get some decent brains vs. brawn action scenes. As for the map-making Raimi, he gets off with a stern warning after a decent speech about disillusionment (this show's other running theme).

Zed didn't get to do much in this episode, except be a stone-cold bad-ass. While Richard and his crew are herding enemy soldiers into a jail cell rather than just slaughtering them wholesale, Zed is trapping two goofy bounty hunters and a load of Daharans in a cave with a flesh-eating monster. This show needs more darkness, but at least Zed consistently delivers.

Legend of the Seeker definitely gets better as the season progresses, so I'm looking forward to the coverage of later episodes. I'll be back next week to cover the fourth in line.