“Swords and Sorcery Return to Syndication” (NY Times)
IN the world of television, it’s nearly impossible to go wrong with a sweaty, half-naked hunk chopping wood in slow motion. But Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert know that better than anybody.Before Mr. Raimi went off to turn “Spider-Man” into a multibillion-dollar movie franchise, the two men were credited with creating a genre of television beloved (at least for a time) around the globe: the syndicated fantasy action drama. Heavy on dragons and fire — not to mention men in lace-up leather pants and scantily clad women wielding swords — their “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” and “Xena: Warrior Princess” were both pop-culture phenomena in the mid-1990s.
Audiences eventually overdosed on the genre, largely because production companies flooded the market with copycats. At least 65 syndicated one-hour dramas arrived from 1991 to 2000, with entries like “Conan: The Adventurer,” “Highlander” and “The Adventures of Sinbad” borrowing directly from the Raimi-Tapert formula. A changing television business accelerated the genre’s death, and by 2007 there was not a single syndicated drama in production.
With the clutter cleared out — and with local television stations grappling with a sudden need for programming — Mr. Raimi and Mr. Tapert are back. Their syndicated series “Legend of the Seeker,” produced in conjunction with the Walt Disney Company’s ABC Studios, will make its debut on Nov. 1 on stations reaching about 95 percent of the country. Based on the best-selling “Sword of Truth” books by Terry Goodkind, the series combines elements of fantasy and adventure with exotic settings furnished by New Zealand.
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