The Magicians Information

The Magicians is a fantasy television series that premiered on Syfy and Showcase on December 16, 2015, as a special preview. The rest of the series premiered on January 25, 2016. It is based on the novel of the same name by Lev Grossman. Michael London, Janice Williams, John McNamara, and Sera Gamble serve as executive producers.

A 13-episode order was placed for the first season in May 2015. On February 8, 2016, the series was renewed for a second season consisting of 13 episodes, and the second season is set to premiere on January 25, 2017.

Premise

Quentin Coldwater enrolls at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy to be trained as a magician, where he discovers that the magical world from his favorite childhood books is real and poses a danger to humanity. Meanwhile, the life of his childhood friend Julia is derailed when she is denied entry, and she searches for magic elsewhere.

Cast and characters

Main

• Jason Ralph as Quentin Coldwater, a graduate student and the protagonist. He enrolls at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy to be trained as a Magician. A lifelong fan of the Fillory and Further series, he discovers that they are in fact based in truth and pose a danger to his world.
• Stella Maeve as Julia Wicker, Quentin's childhood friend, an Ivy League student who is not admitted to Brakebills, and is recruited by a secret magical society.
• Olivia Taylor Dudley as Alice Quinn, a magician and Quentin's love interest whose parents are magicians and who comes from a neglected home life.
• Hale Appleman as Eliot Waugh, a student at Brakebills and senior to Quentin. He is a heavy drinker and frustrating ally to Quentin.
• Arjun Gupta as William 'Penny' Adiyodi, Quentin's roommate and peer, deliberately intimidating and edgy.
• Summer Bishil as Margo Hanson, equivalent to Janet from the novels, her name was changed to avoid confusion with other names beginning with "J".

Recurring

• Jade Tailor as Kady Orloff-Diaz, a tough, rebellious and sexy Brakebills student who attracts Penny"?s attention in and out of the classroom. After she flees Brakebills, she joins a group of Magicians led by Richard and befriends Julia.
• Rick Worthy as Henry Fogg, the Dean of Brakebills.
• David Call as Pete, one of the confidants who welcome Julia into a clandestine underworld to develop her latent skills.
• Michael Cassidy as James (season 1), Julia's boyfriend.
• Esm Bianco as Eliza (season 1), a paramedic who has a hand in initiating Quentin"?s journey into real magic,.
• Anne Dudek as Pearl Sunderland, a teacher at Brakebills and Penny's mentor.
• Kacey Rohl as Marina Andrieski, one of the confidants who welcome Julia into a clandestine underworld to develop her latent skills. Marina was expelled from Brakebills three months before graduation, and uses Julia to help her regain her memories of what she learned.
• Charles Mesure as The Beast, a master magician with six fingers who has taken over Fillory and breaks through to Earth. His head is usually magically obscured by a swarm of moths.
• Mackenzie Astin as Richard, the leader of a group of magicians that Julia joins. He is a counsellor when Julia is in rehab, and teaches her more magic.
• Brittany Curran as Fen (season 2), Eliot's Fillorian wife.
• Rizwan Manji as Tick Pickwick (season 2), a royal advisor.
• Arlen Escarpeta as Prince Ess (season 2), a handsome, rugged, pelt-clad man, with a sort of frat bro air of entitlement and the ruler of Loria.
• Christopher Gorham as John Gaines (season 2), a Senator who discovers he"?s in possession of unusual abilities.

Episodes

| Viewers = 0.92 | ShortSummary = Quentin and Julia are invited to a test of their magical skills. Quentin passes and is accepted to Brakebills University. Julia fails the test and they attempt to wipe her memory about Brakebills and the test, but she manages to leave herself a clue to remember. Refusing to accept that she cannot learn magic, she is later contacted by Pete, who offers to teach her. In his dreams, Quentin meets Jane Chatwin from the "Fillory and Further" novels, who warns him about the Beast and leaves him with a sigil burned into his hand. Alice recognizes the sigil and sees it as an opportunity to know how her brother died. She and Quentin, together with Penny and Kady try to contact her dead brother, Charlie. Instead they accidentally summon the Beast who appears in the school the next day, attacking a teacher and the dean. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 1.11 | ShortSummary = Professor Pearl investigates the Beast incident at Brakebills and Quentin, Alice, Penny, and Kady face disciplinary action for their involvement in the Beast's attack. But Eliza, who is called in as specialist, lets them go on probation. Julia meets Marina when she has to pass a test to join the hedge witches. Kady is secretly working for Marina. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.90 | ShortSummary = Alice and Quentin find out that her brother, Charlie, was consumed by magic and turned into a niffin five years ago. When they find him, he acts differently and Quentin binds him. Devastated about what happened to her brother, Alice leaves Brakebills. Julia struggles to balance learning magic with maintaining her previous life. Eliot searches for the book that Kady stole for Marina, which leads him and Quentin to Marina's hedge witches safe house, where Quentin finds and confronts Julia. Penny, after being assigned incorrectly to the psychic discipline, discovers he is a "Traveler," who has the ability to travel between worlds. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.75 | ShortSummary = Quentin wakes up in the mental hospital he admitted himself to in the first episode, where his memories of Brakebills and magic are treated as delusions. It is revealed that Julia and Marina made Quentin's elaborate hallucination, and the only way to get him out involves summoning a demon bug. Dean Fogg lowers the Brakebills school's security spell, allowing Marina and Julia to sneak in, where they steal Marina's memories of her time at Brakebills before she was expelled. Quentin, with the help of Penny and his visions of Jane Chatwin, is able to escape the hallucination. Marina, after being reunited with her memories, cuts off Julia from her hedge witch safe house because Julia tried to help Dean Fogg save Quentin. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.75 | ShortSummary = Quentin visits home after finding out that his father has been diagnosed with brain cancer. He struggles with accepting that magic cannot save his father, and eventually opens up to his father about magic. After being cut off by Marina, Julia tries to find other hedge witch safe houses in New York with the help of Pete, but nobody else has nearly as many spells. Marina erases James' memory of Julia to prevent her from telling him about magic. Alice returns to Brakebills and Eliot and Margo try to use her connections to get a mentor. Penny practices astral projection and discovers a woman, Victoria, chained in a dungeon by the Beast. Based on the crest on the doors, Quentin surmises that Penny has traveled to Fillory. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.65 | ShortSummary = The first-years must pass a set of challenges called "the trials" devised by the third years. While doing the trials, Quentin and Penny reconcile, Alice and Quentin share secrets and Kady confesses the truth that she is using Penny. As each of the first years passes the trials, they each turn into a goose. Meanwhile, in an attempt to steal spells from Marina, Julia teams up with an older hedge witch who also has connections with Marina. The older hedge witch turns out to be Kady's mother and dies in the process of stealing the cabinet of spells from Marina's safe house. Kady had been working for Marina in payment of a debt related to her mother. Kady does not know yet that her mother died. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| OriginalAirDate = | Viewers = 0.70 | ShortSummary = While in the form of geese, Quentin and his peers fly to Brakebills South Antarctica to study with Professor Mayakovsky, who puts them through several challenges. Eliot and Margo prepare to travel to Ibiza, and with the help of newly-met Todd and Mike, summon a Djinn as a gift for the organizers of the party. When Eliot starts sleeping with Mike, he chooses to stay behind and Todd goes with Margo. Julia's sister picks her up from the police station following the death of Kady's mother, and insists on helping Julia to avoid their mother from knowing what happened. Mayakovsky engineers Alice and Quentin into a relationship. He also tells Kady that her mother died and she is no longer welcome at Brakebills, encouraging her to immediately leave and not to go back to the main school lest they take her memories of her time at the school. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.67 | ShortSummary = Eliot and Mike grow closer, while Quentin and Alice spend time apart to make assessments about their feelings for each other. Mike, while attacking Quentin, stabs Penny with a cursed blade. Recognizing a similar event in the Fillory and Further books, Quentin and Alice are able to save him. Mike pretends to remember nothing until Eliza confronts him, at which point he recognizes her as Jane Chatwin and kills her. He also attempts to attack Dean Fogg but before doing so he is killed by Eliot. In rehab, Julia meets a counselor named Richard who was trained at Brakebills and introduces her to religious magic. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.71 | ShortSummary = Quentin discovers that Penny destroyed the manuscript given to him by Eliza in the first episode. Penny relates that it is a book about Fillory written by Jane Chatwin and not by Christopher Plover, in which Jane wanted to clarify the discrepancies. Quentin, Penny, Alice, and Eliot travel to the Plover estate to search for the button which according to Jane in the book is the key to the door to Fillory. They find that the mansion is haunted by the ghosts of Plover's housekeeper's children, whose Plover's sister had drugged and killed to prevent them from disturbing Plover's work. Quentin discovers that Plover was learning magic and was molesting Martin Chatwin. Plover disappeared, rather than dying, leading Quentin to believe that he is the Beast. The four of them find the button with the children's corpses. Meanwhile, Julia helps Richard by entering the mind of a paralyzed mute woman. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.78 | ShortSummary = Penny has been trapped in the Neitherlands, the space between other worlds. He contacts Quentin and discovers that, while it's only been 6 hours for him, it's been 6 weeks back on Earth. To help Penny, Alice and Quentin travel to her parents' house to ask for help from a family friend, who is also a Traveler. Penny meets a librarian in the Neitherlands who gives him information about how to fight the Beast. Quentin and Alice must resolve relationship issues to be able to cast a beacon spell which will help Penny finds his way back to Earth. Eliot and Margo discover that an ex-boyfriend of hers had constructed a living Golem in her image. Julia hosts other magicians whom she knows through Richard, including Kady. Julia and Kady together learn some spells before joining their friends on a project, and then Richard explains to them that they are trying to summon a god to provide them with enough magical power to rewrite the past. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.72 | ShortSummary = Quentin, Alice, Penny, Eliot and Margo use probability magic to determine their best chance to kill the beast and survive; the only option that doesn't end in all of them dead is for them to travel to Fillory to kill the Beast. Because of time constraints, they prepare by learning the dangerous battle magic used by hedge witches. The Beast is driving Penny and other Travelers insane, leading some of them to kill themselves, including Penny's mentor Stanley. Penny uses drugs to try blocking out the Beast's voice, leading to an overdose. Professor Pearl Sunderland helps him shut the voices out. Mastering the battle spells leaves Quentin, Eliot, and Margo emotionally high and disoriented. Quentin has sex with Margo and Eliot, and when he wakes up he find Alice at the foot of the bed. Kady and Julia search for clues to help them summon a god, and someone visits Julia in her dreams. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.75 | ShortSummary = Alice and Quentin fight following his infidelity, and she sleeps with Penny as revenge. Quentin, Alice, Penny, Eliot, and Margo travel to the Neitherlands, where they are ambushed and Quentin falls back to Earth. The others hide in the Neitherland's library, until Eliot burns a book and gets them kick out. They find Josh Hoberman, one of the missing class students from Brakebills. Two years ago, he and a classmate - a Traveler named Victoria - led their class to Fillory. Meanwhile on Earth, Quentin talks to Dean Fogg, who reveals that Eliza is Jane Chatwin. She had been using an enchanted watch, given to her by a god named Ember, to create a time loop so she can try different methods of killing the Beast. After 39 failures, in which Quentin always died, she changed the starting circumstances by having Julia rejected from Brakebills so that she would learn magic by herself. Quentin reconciles with Julia to tell her the truth. Together, they find their way into Fillory by traveling back to 1942 and following young Jane Chatwin through a door to Fillory. | LineColor = 020B1F }}

| Viewers = 0.68 | ShortSummary = Travelling to Fillory, Julia and Quentin discover they've been followed by Martin Chatwin, whom they promise to help find Jane. They commission a blade to help them kill the Beast, and meet the Watcherwoman, a future Jane Chatwin. She says her farewell to them and helps them go back to the present time. As they arrive at the present time, Quentin and Julia receive the enchanted letter and map leading to Penny, Eliot and Margo. They get the blade, but Eliot has to marry the blade maker's daughter, as he was recognized by the blade as the future High King. Quentin and Julia look for Ember, who can give them enough power to hold the blade. Ember unlocks Julia's memories, revealing that she and her friends, instead of summoning a god, had been tricked to summon a trickster god called Reynard the Fox, who raped Julia and killed her friends. After, she asked Marina's help to erase and alter her memories of the incident. Penny, Alice, Eliot and Margo rescued the Beast's prisoners, Victoria and Christopher Plover, who reveal that the Beast is Martin Chatwin. Josh and Victoria leave the group and return to Earth, while the rest travel to the source of Fillory's magic, to ambush the Beast. There, the Beast overpowers them. Julia gets the blade from Alice, and holds the empowered knife to the Beast's throat. Julia makes a deal with the Beast to kill Reynard, and they leave, with Quentin the only one left standing. | LineColor = 020B1F }} }}

Production

Development

Michael London first optioned the books in 2011, intending to develop the show at Fox. X-Men: First Class co-writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz wrote the pilot, but did not get the green light. London then redeveloped the pilot with McNamara and Gamble taking over writing duties, and took the script to Syfy, which ordered a pilot. The pilot, directed by Mike Cahill, was filmed in New Orleans in late 2014 and wrapped in December. Syfy picked up the show for a 13-episode first season, to be aired in 2016. McNamara and Gamble became executive producers.

Series production began on August 4, 2015, in Vancouver, and it was announced that Olivia Taylor Dudley had replaced Sosie Bacon as Alice Quinn. It was also announced that Rick Worthy had been cast as Dean Fogg, Anne Dudek as Professor Sunderland, with Esm Bianco also cast. Syfy aired an advanced commercial-free screening of the first episode on December 16, 2015 ahead of its January 25, 2016 premiere, when it was shown along with the second episode.

The second season is set to premiere on January 25, 2017.

Reception

The show has met with mixed to positive critical response. On Metacritic, it holds a rating of 60/100, based on 24 reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 69% approval rating based on 26 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "The Magicians impressive special effects and creative storytelling help compensate for a derivative premise and occasionally sluggish pace."

Ratings

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| title4 = The World in the Walls | date4 = February 8, 2016 | rs4 = 0.3 | viewers4 = 0.75 | dvr4 = 0.3 | dvrv4 = 0.80 | total4 = 0.6 | totalv4 = 1.54

| title5 = Mendings, Major and Minor | date5 = February 15, 2016 | rs5 = 0.3 | viewers5 = 0.75 | dvr5 = n/a | dvrv5 = n/a | total5 = n/a | totalv5 = n/a

| title6 = Impractical Applications | date6 = February 22, 2016 | rs6 = 0.3 | viewers6 = 0.65 | dvr6 = n/a | dvrv6 = n/a | total6 = n/a | totalv6 = n/a

| title7 = The Mayakovsky Circumstance | date7 = February 29, 2016 | rs7 = 0.3 | viewers7 = 0.70 | dvr7 = 0.3 | dvrv7 = 0.85 | total7 = 0.6 | totalv7 = 1.55

| title8 = The Strangled Heart | date8 = March 7, 2016 | rs8 = 0.3 | viewers8 = 0.67 | dvr8 = 0.3 | dvrv8 = 0.81 | total8 = 0.6 | totalv8 = 1.49

| title9 = The Writing Room | date9 = March 14, 2016 | rs9 = 0.3 | viewers9 = 0.71 | dvr9 = 0.3 | dvrv9 = 0.76 | total9 = 0.6 | totalv9 = 1.47

| title10 = Homecoming | date10 = March 21, 2016 | rs10 = 0.3 | viewers10 = 0.78 | dvr10 = n/a | dvrv10 = n/a | total10 = n/a | totalv10 = n/a

| title11 = Remedial Battle Magic | date11 = March 28, 2016 | rs11 = 0.3 | viewers11 = 0.72 | dvr11 = 0.3 | dvrv11 = 0.78 | total11 = 0.6 | totalv11 = 1.50

| title12 = Thirty-Nine Graves | date12 = April 4, 2016 | rs12 = 0.3 | viewers12 = 0.75 | dvr12 = 0.3 | dvrv12 = 0.73 | total12 = 0.6 | totalv12 = 1.48

| title13 = Have You Brought Me Little Cakes | date13 = April 11, 2016 | rs13 = 0.3 | viewers13 = 0.68 | dvr13 = 0.3 | dvrv13 = 0.76 | total13 = 0.6 | totalv13 = 1.43 }}

Home media release

The first season of The Magicians was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on July 19, 2016 in Region 1. The release included all thirteen episodes, as well as multiple special features, including Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel, The World of The Magicians, and UltraViolet Digital Copies.