On Friday, I found out that there was a new Lockwood & Co series running on Netflix. I hadn’t heard anything about it and Netflix didn’t recommend it to me on my account, but I guess it had only released a couple days before that so I’m not too far behind. In any case, I loved Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood books and was sad when the series ended, so I thought this might be a good way to revisit the series.

Note: I’m not Netflix’s biggest fan right now. I don’t use the service much anyway, but we keep it around because we share with our kids. We pay extra to have it on six screens, so each of the five of us can have it on our phones, plus on our TV. This whole “we’re taking away password-sharing” fiasco has really pissed so many people off, and even more, the whole walking it back without apology, pretending it was a mistake even though their US customer service was already trained on how to answer questions about college kids, deployed spouses, etc. Fiasco is such a mild word. It’s like they’re trying to go out of business. Again. I’m honestly not sure how long before they pull another stunt like this, so my goal is to get through any shows I have sitting around that I haven’t finished yet so I can cancel as soon as they do.

But back to Lockwood. I watched the first two episodes on Friday evening, and the rest yesterday. I’m generally indifferent on movie adaptations of books, unlike many readers. Sometimes I like the movie but not the book (like The Hours). Often the book is far better (like with the HP series). Sometimes seeing the movie helps me with a book I haven’t been able to get into yet (like Northanger Abbey), and sometimes the movie tells me that I was right to abandon the book (like The Great Gatsby). I don’t have any true preference on seeing the movie or reading the book first; it just depends. And I’ve always felt like most book adaptations would be far better in series format. So much more of the detail can be put in, there’s expanded time for rich settings and character development, backstories can be explored, and so on. I’ve loved quite a few mini-series – Jonathan Strange, Good Omens, Poldark (before it got rapey…) – so I was really excited to hear about this one. I’d long suspected Lockwood would be good as a TV show!

I loved it. There were a few things that changed, like aging up the characters a bit, but generally I thought this was a really well-done adaptation. I’m looking forward to the second season, but unlike other folks, I’ve read the books so I know what’s on the other end of that last cliffhanger! I’m good to wait for the next binge. Meanwhile, I think the guy who plays Lockwood did a fabulous job projecting Lockwood’s cocky arrogance with a hint of humanity underneath. Lucy is spectacularly spunky, and George’s character was changed a bit from his rather stereotypical book self, so a change for the better. It was also fun to see a few actors I recognized, like Mr Diggery from HP4. The one thing that kept throwing me off, though, was that three of the prominent characters looked so much like young versions of already-famous actors and actresses. Lucy was a dead ringer for a babyfaced Jennifer Lawrence. Quill Kipp is a teenaged Rufus Sewell. Lockwood looks like if Daniel Radcliffe and Tobey Maguire had a child together. I kept thinking I’d seen all three of them in former shows/movies, but no, it was just that uncanny resemblance. Heh. Last but not least, the show soundtrack is fire!

Has anyone else watched these? I highly recommend them, though if you haven’t read the books, that last cliffhanger is going to get you, haha! View the trailer here.