These fantasy TV shows managed to top their respective book and graphic novel adaptations. Sometimes, that’s a nod to the excellence of the series, and sometimes, that’s an acknowledgment that the books didn’t work quite as well as we may have hoped. Whatever the reason, it’s a difficult feat for the fantasy genre.
Plenty of stories have found that the translation from book to television is easy, and maybe even superior, but for whatever reason, fantasy books and novels have always had struggles being adapted. Still, there are a handful of TV shows that take what their books offer, and spin them into something even better.
The Umbrella Academy (2019-2024)
Based On Gerard Way’s The Umbrella Academy (2007-Present)
The Umbrella Academy, both the show and the graphic novel, are about an adopted family of superheroes who reunite for their father’s funeral and work together to prevent an imminent apocalypse. Beyond that general outline, the graphic novels and the TV shows are very different.
Powers, relationships, the story after season 1, and character designs and involvement in the story are very different between the two. The Umbrella Academy the show has a focus on characters and how they grow throughout the series, whereas the comic is, for lack of a better word, weirder.
If you are looking for something a bit more surreal and inexplicable, then the graphic novels are for you. It’s the show that is the more rewarding experience, however. The strength of the characters and their growth throughout the series is critical to making the audience understand the stakes of the story’s universe.
The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017)
Based On L.J. Smith’s The Vampire Diaries Series (1991-2014)
The Vampire Diaries TV series is a CW show set in the fictional town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, which has a long supernatural history. Nina Dobrev stars as Elena Gilbert, an orphan who falls in love with the vampire Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley) and later his brother, Damon (Ian Somerhalder), who both work to protect her from harm.
For the most part, that’s the thrust of The Vampire Diaries books. However, everything else about the shows and the books is very different. Character names and surface details are the same, but they go in far different directions. The TV series seems to go in better directions though.
The first four books of The Vampire Diaries series are solid, but soon afterward, different authors using the name “L.J. Smith” began writing the series. This has led to the books feeling not just inferior as time goes on, but very disjointed. The TV show manages to keep a satisfying plot throughout the series.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2015)
Based On Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel is one of those fantasy TV shows that too many people have missed. The series stars Eddie Marsan as Mr Norrell and Bertie Carvel as Jonathan Strange. The series takes place in a fictional version of 19th century England where magic is real but forgotten and not widely practiced.
The book and TV show are very close in terms of their plots and characterizations, but the TV medium is better suited to Clarke’s story. The magic on display and the production designs of the alternate versions of England are absolutely necessary to bring the series to life.
The novel is quite long at nearly 800 pages and has plenty of diversions to side characters and stories, which are all excellently written. However, the TV series is more streamlined and really explores the main meat of the story. It does so with a trademark sense of humor that Marsan and Carvel are perfect for.
The Magicians (2015-2020)
Based On Lev Grossman’s The Magicians Trilogy (2009-2014)
The Magicians is a fantasy series that ran for five seasons on TV and three books in print. The book and TV versions of The Magicians have some similarities, particularly when it comes to season 1 of the show, but as the TV series goes on the two stories diverge more and more.
In both, Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) is an aspiring magic user who enrolls at Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy to learn the fine art of magic. His closest friend, Julia Wicker (Stella Maeve), is denied entry, however, and is forced to go about learning magic through unofficial and dangerous methods.
Both the books and the show are respectable, but the series adds quite a bit more to make it an enjoyable experience. Most importantly, The Magicians the show operates with a fantastic sense of humor that brings some levity as well as a knowing cheekiness to the series that blends well with the characters.
Game Of Thrones (2011-2019)
Based On George R. R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire (1996-Present)
What is worse, to have a beloved book series go unfinished, or a TV adaptation of that series crash and burn in the final few seasons after some of the best seasons of TV ever? I’m going to say that at this point, Game of Thrones is superior to Martin’s own novels.
Unless in the next few years he manages to pump out the rest of the series, which I fear would actually require not two, but three novels to tie everything up, Game of Thrones has to be considered better by default. Truthfully, I believe that the best the show has to offer beats the best the books have to offer anyway.
The novels are very good fantasy storytelling and Martin should be commended for his boldness, expansive world, and deeply human characters, but seasons one through four of Game of Thrones take everything Martin did, and make it better. Some of the best scenes in GOT weren’t even in ASOIAF.
House Of The Dragon (2022-Present)
Based On George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood (2018)
It appears that George R. R. Martin’s solution to writing himself into a corner like he did in Game of Thrones was to write a series without any walls at all, let alone corners. Fire & Blood is Martin’s fantasy backstory to A Song of Ice and Fire, focusing on the reign of the Targaryens starting with their landing in Westeros.
The conceit of the novel is that it is a history book, a scholarly treatise about the Targaryens written from the point of view of a handful of historians. What this results in is a book with no definitive statements. Every time the story says something happened, the next line suggests the history could be incorrect.
Perhaps that makes it an accurate history book, but it does not make for a satisfying fantasy story. I applaud the decisions that House of the Dragon has made in its storytelling. What’s more, nothing that happens in the show can be considered “non-canon” because the canon, Fire & Blood itself, refuses to say what the real story is.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
