Review: The Librarians & King Arthur’s Crown & The Sword in the Stone

The two hour premiere of The Librarians was last night and I don’t know about you, but I had a grand old time. Having long been a fan of the films, my roommates in college and I would make sure never to miss them, I am more than delighted to jump back into this world ten years in the making. Yes, ten years! Gosh that makes me feel old.

The two part opener started off with The Librarians & the Crown of King Arthur where we are introduced to the new cast. Colonel Eve Baird, played by Rebecca Romijn, is recruited by The Library after she shows some skill at protecting Flynn Carsen as they simultaneously diffuse a bomb and an acient demon summoning box… thing. Anywho, she arrives at The Library and despite initially objecting to needing a guardian, Flynn finds her useful as they realize the other candidates for the role of the Librarian are being killed off by The Serpent Brotherhood (the big baddies in The Librarian films). So they know what they’ve got to do, they’ve got to rescue the last three alive.

So meet The Librarians.

Cassandra (Lindy Booth) is a synesthete working as a janitor in a hospital where she occasionally offers medical diagnoses thanks to her photographic memory and science and mathematical skills.

Flynn and Eve split up to grab the other two before they can be offed. Flynn heads to Geneva while Eve travels on down to Oklahoma.

Ezekiel Jones (John Kim) is a world renowned thief who botches a heist (whoops) and is saved from getting stabbed by Flynn while Jacob Stone (Christian Kane) gets himself into a bar fight after hitting on one of the Serpent Brotherhood ladies.

In some series, these little snippets could be done quite dramatically, but there’s a great element of fun in The Librarians. There’s “ninjas” for one.

In general, The Librarians is sort of everything it promised it would be. It’s not overly serious, though I suspect the opener is the most serious of at least the first part of the series… what with the death and betrayal and all.

Basically, Flynn and the new recruits have to stop the Serpent Brotherhood from releasing magic back into the world, because things will go topsy turvy. And it’s obvious to say that things don’t go according to plan. There’s a break in and then there’s a treasure hunt. Adventure!

John Larroquette easily stole the second half of the premiere with his exasperate co-Librarian Jenkins who just wants some peace and quiet and not a bunch of kids. His interactions with the Librarianettes are gold and I already know he’s going to be a favorite.

The fight scenes need a bit of tightening up to not look quite so choreographed, so hopefully that’ll change, and one could have called that kiss at the end coming given the trajectory of the films, but I would have liked to have it been a bit later in the series or something. Sort of came out of no where, but ah well.

Overall though it was a delight and just the sort of injection of fun and adventure and MAGIC that will give us a reason to look forward to Sunday evenings. So very happy for it.

What did you guys think? Will you be tuning in for the rest of the series?

The Librarians is on TNT every Sunday at 8/7c. Also, you can watch the series on TNT Drama here and also on iTunes, including a longer uncut version of the premiere.

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A few more spoilery remarks for the two-part opener are below, so if you haven’t watched yet, proceed at your own risk.

What got me most about the premiere was that is was surprisingly emotional. I was particularly impressed with Lindy Booth’s turn as the quietly desperate Cassandra, hoping against hope that magic would be the cure to her tumor (& a note that this particular reveal was done rather perfectly. It was genuine, not presented dramatically, and instead got a bit of an emotional reaction from me. Well done there.).

Knowing that Noah Wyle was in more than just the opening episodes sort of took away any worry that Flynn was actually going to die, but I didn’t expect that his living would mean Excalibur would die. How dare John Rogers make me emotional about a sword?! Having been a staple in every one of the films in some way, Excalibur started off as Flynn’s greatest enemy and then became his best friend through the years. And now he’s melted mush.

:( Cal.

Also, who else is on the Cassandra/Jacob bandwagon because sign me up.