The fantasy series that put Narnia and Skins in the same show lasted five seasons
Six years on, a “Harry Potter meets Skins” fantasy series still hits hard for its grounded, grown-up storytelling.
Finding a fantasy series that’s both finished and actually worth your time isn’t as easy as you’d hope, especially if you’ve already rinsed through the usual suspects. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Game of Thrones are a bit too obvious for this conversation. But if you want something less mainstream, there’s a certain Syfy series from a while back that still holds up surprisingly well, even though it wrapped up six years ago. No, it never managed to reach fever pitch in popular culture, but maybe that’s part of its charm. And yes, it tips its hat to the likes of Harry Potter, Narnia and (bear with me) even early-2000s teen drama Skins.
The Magicians ran for five seasons and concluded in 2020, with a properly planned ending.
We’re talking about The Magicians. It’s a blend of familiar fantasy tropes — magic schools, other worlds and so forth — but what sets it apart is how shamelessly it picks them apart. The tone is cynical and messy, with a lot less fairy dust and a lot more real-world anxiety than you’d expect from the genre. “What if Harry Potter had to deal with actual adulthood, mental health and wine-stained decisions?” is more or less the vibe.
A Bit About the Show
The Magicians is adapted from Lev Grossman’s books, but you don’t need to have read them. The story centres on Quentin Coldwater, who spends much of his life daydreaming about getting whisked away to a magical land — and then, when this actually happens, finds it’s not the solution to all his issues after all. It’s refreshingly unceremonious about the genre’s usual escapism: Quentin’s still carrying all the usual baggage, and while magic might make for a flashier coat of paint, his anxiety and identity crises aren’t so easily charmed away.
And it’s not just Quentin: the whole lot of them have their own properly human problems, made more difficult and messy by the tools at their disposal, not solved by them. It makes for a show that never shies away from the awkwardness, heartbreak and frustrations of being young and a bit lost, even as it’s hurling its cast through Narnia-style world-hopping and the odd magical bender. The characters are older than the Skins crew — think grad students instead of sixth form — but the same sense of discovery and self-inflicted disaster runs throughout. Plus, in case you forgot, this is Syfy, so naturally there’s enough steamy drama to make Hogwarts blush.
Why Bother With It Now?
The thing about The Magicians is that it got something most fantasy TV doesn’t: a chance to actually end properly. Yes, it technically got the axe from Syfy, but the showrunners were clued in early enough to get their final season in order and stopped the story where they wanted to. If you’re sick of series that just vanish or limp to a rushed finish because someone upstairs panicked, this is a rare treat. There’s a full arc to binge through — five seasons’ worth — with all the wild plot swings, humour, and surprisingly raw character drama preserved from start to finish.
And it’s all paced decently, without meandering like so many shows seem to these days. The cast is big, flawed, occasionally infuriating and (crucially) never allowed to just magic their way out of trouble. The show’s not afraid to let characters mess up and face the fallout, or to leaven its darker moments with a bit of sly humour. Six years after it ended, The Magicians holds together as a deeply bingeable fantasy – the sort of series that quietly rewards anyone willing to give it a chance now it’s sitting in the streaming graveyard.