Re: 1:01 - Birds of a Feather
okay, it was . . . good. (cautiously). I liked the way they interwove Harry's backstory and paralleled it with the young boy's story. Murphy seemed right.
Some things that bugged me:
Harry's too old.
This never crossed my mind. Harry's age seems fine to me.
Too prosperous (at least his house looks that way.)
Well, it didn't look at all prosperous to me, everything was built out of older, used parts. I did notice the electric lights, but while Butcher describes Harry's place being lit by candles, he never says that all electricity goes out when he's around. Otherwise, every building he enters would lose it's lighting as well. What is implied is that complicated gadgets and intricate wiring are what go haywire when he's around. Again, his car wouldn't start if he couldn't get that electric spark and so on. So, this didn't bother me though I did think about it when I saw it.
I didn't like that his door to his apartment/office (they shouldn't be the same thing at all) was a double, see-through glass door. I'm not sure why they dispensed with the heavy, reinforced wood door that is so helpful in the books. One would think these doors to be terribly flimsy and easily broken as well as seen into. Harry wouldn't want everyone seeing his business.
Another thing, the 'protection' was just some black strips hung up at the sides of the doors? Harry's wards wouldn't have been so easily removed, or visible except to those with magical powers. This one baffles me. They could have easily made note of his 'protective wards' and wouldn't have needed any props or anything else to back it up. Why use such a cruddy replacement?
Where's his staff? His pentacle necklace? His leather duster?
These changes are minor and have been discussed at length on the Butcher forum, the Dresden Files forum and on the earlier thread here. They do not change the character of Harry himself and were changed for very good reasons.
Bob being corporeal (or at least visible) bugged the HELL out of me. They should have made the skull talk and they eyes glow instead.
This didn't bother me at all. What bothered me was that Bob was such a tenderhearted wuss. Normally he's a bada$$, trash-talking annoyance.
Well, after saying all that, I quite liked it. Though another thing I had some issues with was that there wasn't enough information, too many questions left unanswered. Who hired the Ravens to protect the kid? Justin? If they were mercenaries hired for a job, they wouldn't readily back down and allow Harry to do whatever he wanted. If the teacher was the skinwalker and wanted the boy, why didn't she get him earlier? By all accounts the teacher was taken over by the skinwalker days before the kid was finally taken by the Ravens. Why did the Ravens wait until the last minute to move the boy to safety? Why, other than establishing that Harry is poor, would Harry be badgering Murphy about getting paid? That was out of character.
But, like I said, I definitely enjoyed it and will most certainly watch the next episode.
