{"id":10204,"date":"2020-05-13T14:14:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T12:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=10204"},"modified":"2020-05-13T14:14:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T12:14:11","slug":"the-magicians-escape-the-pandemic-to-the-magical-land-of-fillory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2020\/05\/13\/the-magicians-escape-the-pandemic-to-the-magical-land-of-fillory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magicians: Escape The Pandemic To The Magical Land Of Fillory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The fifth and final season of The Magicians is now available to binge first on Showmax. Season 5 has a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is \u201cwithout a doubt a satisfying conclusion to an amazing five-year series,\u201d according to TV Fanatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the best-selling novels by Lev Grossman, The Magicians centres on a group of friends as they discover their magical abilities at Brakebills University and ward off evil creatures who threaten to destroy Fillory, the magical world they\u2019ve come to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All four previous seasons of The Magicians have been nominated for Best Fantasy TV Series by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, while the series has an overall critics rating of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memorably described as \u201cHarry Potter meets The Chronicles of Narnia meets the cold, harsh realities of real life\u201d by The Verge, The Magicians was SYFY\u2019s longest-running show on air when it ended this year. The cult favourite has been hailed as \u201cthe most entrancing fantasy available on television\u201d by Salon, \u201cthe funniest fantasy show on TV\u201d by Indiewire, \u201cthe most sexually aware show on TV\u201d by io9, and as \u201ca fantasy show for people who love fantasy shows\u201d by AVClub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Spoiler alert] Last season, magic was saved, but at a terrible cost: the life of Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph), who died heroically to save his friends\u2014 and the world. Julia (Stella Maeve), Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley), Eliot (Hale Appleman), Margo (Summer Bishil), Penny (Arjun Gupta) and their friends (and frenemies) must learn to navigate a world without him while facing a new threat: in freeing magic, the balance tipped the other way and there\u2019s too damn much of it. As the excess builds, an apocalypse looms. Can the magicians get their sh*t together to save the world without Q?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admittedly, killing off the show\u2019s lead character in last season\u2019s finale was a controversial move. As Collider says, \u201cTo be perfectly honest, I was not looking forward to The Magicians Season 5. The SYFY series has long been one of my favourite shows on television, even more so when it started leaving Lev Grossman\u2019s phenomenal source material behind and began carving out its own path. But the Season 4 finale, in which the show\u2019s lead character Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) sacrificed himself to save his friends and thus exited the series, broke my heart. The hero of this story, the character who so deeply drew me into the world of The Magicians and made me fall in love with this brash, bold fantasy series (first in the books, then onscreen), was gone. I don\u2019t mean to be dramatic, but it\u2019s hard to imagine watching one of your favourite TV shows without its leading character.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Vox points out, \u201cThe Magicians has always cheekily leaned into the idea that heroes in fantasy stories too often look like Quentin \u2014 which is to say white, male, and conventionally attractive. But most of the show\u2019s characters other than Quentin haven\u2019t fit that paradigm, and arguably Quentin himself, who was bisexual, didn\u2019t either. So killing off Quentin also functions as a kind of meta-commentary on The Magicians\u2019 attempts to transcend both its genre and its source material, in which Quentin remains alive through the end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite their initial scepticism, Collider, like many others, was won over by Season 5. \u201cThe show\u2019s writers find compelling ways to make Quentin\u2019s death meaningful, and it results in some fascinating and ultimately forward-thinking character developments. Moreover (and maybe most importantly), The Magicians is still tons of fun. There are weird creatures, off-colour jokes, and plenty of fantastical twists and turns. And that\u2019s The Magicians Season 5\u2019s greatest triumph. That it feels at once like it\u2019s moving on from the loss of its central character, but also still feels like the same show I came to love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re as sad, and grateful for the magic, as anyone. But at a time when everything is up in the air globally, there\u2019s also something reassuring about committing to a show that you know has an ending, and a good one at that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As The Atlantic wrote, \u201cIt\u2019s a story made more powerful now, given current circumstances. At a time when many of us are experiencing our own moments of sadness and anxiety, The Magicians series can be the escape the Fillory books were for Quentin\u2026 With so many people currently seeking out escapism in all its forms, SYFY\u2019s The Magicians is a fantastic binge watch, an all-consuming experience with just enough light to distract from the global pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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