He's a Wizard, P.I.
The Dresden Files is an agreeably escapist hour
Once upon a time, there was another young wizard named Harry (Dresden, not Potter) who kept his gifts a secret except when needed to fight evil. This boy, a magician's son, grew up to be Chicago's answer to Jim Rockford — although how many private eyes can boast a medieval ghost (played by Broadway vet Terrence Mann) as a sidekick?
Sci Fi's diverting new series The Dresden Files (premieres Sunday, Jan. 21, at 9 pm/ET), based on Jim Butcher's novels, isn't quite a Harry Potter-like obsession. A mildly entertaining concoction of humor and horror, though rarely extreme enough to elicit actual laughs or gasps, this supernatural procedural is an agreeably escapist hour to help launch Sci Fi's Sunday schedule.
With its self-contained episodes and fanciful premise, Dresden is intended as a more mainstream lead-in to cult transplant Battlestar Galactica. (Just what we need: more Sunday choices.)
As Harry Dresden, Paul Blackthorne (a former 24 villain) has the right rumpled look and wearily off-kilter attitude to accept cases like the little boy who comes screaming, "I've got monsters!" Charmed by fate, charming by nature, Harry (like James Garner's Rockford) is nevertheless hardly invulnerable to the cuts, bruises and injuries that come with the territory. By the end of both episodes I screened, he's much the worse for wear from his demonic encounters, which only makes him more endearing.
In some ways, Harry Dresden seems like a character just as suitable for Sci Fi's sibling USA Network, with quirky sleuths like Monk and Psych (both newly returned for a winter season). Could crossover episodes be in the offing? That's a parlor trick I'd like to see.
Our Plain Jane
An erotic gloom shrouds much of this stylized yet strangely pallid new Jane Eyre from — where else? — Masterpiece Theatre (Jan. 21 and Jan. 28, PBS; check listings). Newcomer Ruth Wilson is a wonderfully self-possessed, disarmingly direct Jane, who seems wasted on the bland young Rochester played by Toby Stephens. Their naturalistic acting style is often at odds with the gothic conventions of Charlotte Brontë's great romance, which feels bogged down in this four-hour adaptation.
Roush Rave
While not the best musical episode ever (that honor goes to Buffy), this week's Scrubs extravaganza (Thursday, 9 pm/ET, NBC), with numbers by Broadway's Avenue Q gurus, is the cleverest, funniest and most heart-warming. Packed with showstoppers, from production numbers to a love duet (between J.D. and Turk, naturally) and a Gilbert and Sullivan-style rant from Dr. Cox, this savvy, saucy episode reminds us how musical comedy can sometimes be the very best medicine.
