Review: Shadowhunters Season One.

The first time I started the season, I got bored half way through the season. Talking to someone who still watches the show, they said that it gets better in season 2 (I will be talking about that once I finish watching that season)

I may be late to the game, but I wanted to get my thoughts out on the season. I have opinions, and I want to express them. There will be comparisons to the book and the movie because it's hard not to when talking about an adaptation.

There were some changes that were made that I was okay with. I like that Luke has an actual job for start. I didn't like how he was basically jobless, it just didn't really mesh with his personality in my opinion. As a Detective, he gets to have the job of protector, something that I think matched his personality.

It made sense to me to age up the characters. less than halfway through the book characters were having sex. Yes, sure teens do have sex, but it would be weird to depict 16/17-year-olds having sex. I really liked that Izzy was nice to Clary. It's frustrating to always see girls bullying each other in books, especially over trivial reasons.

I did like most of the casting choices. I was on the fence about Jamie Cambell-bower for the movie. Yeah, he's fairly attractive, but he was too "thin" to play Jace how I imagined him, so the choice for the show I thought was an improvement. I think this version of Izzy is more like the book character, movie Izzy was fine, but she was too quiet and soft spoken. This Izzy is sassy and flaunts her body the way book Izzy does. She know's she looks good but isn't vulgar about it either. 

Mathew Daddario is perfect as Alec, the movie casting was also fine, but he was far shorter than I pictured him being. The casting for Simon was really the only one in both the movie and the show where I felt it was perfect.

Now, for Clary, I didn't really care for either casting choice. Their acting aside, both actresses playing Clary seem a little too tall in my opinion. I thought Clary was described as really short. Forgive me, but 5'5" isn't short. That is average height for women, I might be projecting a little because I am a short person at 5'0". In my mind when reading the book I pictured someone more like Holland Roden as Clary. I could excuse it a little more if their acting was a little better, but it might also be that season one was pretty melodramatic, the first book kind of is too. 

Magnus is great. Both actors looked the part, but Harry Shum Jr. really got the attitude down for Magnus. Clary's parents, Valentine is an improvement. He actually looks old enough to have an 18-year-old child, and he is really convincing in the role. Didn't get to see enough of Jocelyn to make an informed opinion.

Now for the things I didn't really like. I didn't like that they took away Simon's band, again. Sure they gave him the van in the show, but the weird duo with the super aged up Maureen didn't really feel right to me. I didn't like how the swords looked in season one. They looked like garbage, cheap plastic toy you could buy at Hot Topic or something.

Didn't really like how they changed the Institute, filling it with Shadowhunters when it was made very clear in the books that only ones there were the Lightwoods, Jace, and Hodge. I do not like how they made everything high tech the way they did. It felt off and didn't really work for me. Where is Church? Give us the cat.

I didn't outright hate the show once I kind of forced myself to not think about the books when I was watching it, or as little as possible. But there were still some story telling options I didn't understand. The alternate reality they went to, for example. It just didn't really work in the long run for the story telling at least not yet. Especially with the "big reveal" that happens at the end of the first season/book involving Jace and Clary. It would have been a big clue that what they were told was a lie, and we should have also seen Jonathan there, I know he wasn't introduced yet, but he should have been there.

And while I did try to not think about the books, it was hard to when they started advancing certain plot points. I did not like how they revived Jocelyn at the end of season one. It negated Clary's journey in Shadow world, she spent months trying to wake her mother in the book, not 2 weeks. It irked me, and it lead to a choice later that I liked even less.

So that's what I have to say about season one, with as little spoilers as possible. I don't know how many of you that follow my blog have read TMI, or have watched the Shadowhunters show, or how many of you care about my opinion on this since season one came out over a year ago, but here it is anyway. Sorry for the lack absence of graphics, I don't have Photoshop or know how to use it.