First look UK TV review: The Magicians Season 3
David Farnor | On 08, Jul 2018
The Magicians is back on our screens for a third run, and if you were impressed by the confident second season, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The show has always excelled because it grounds the fantastical with the real, and never lets anything magical happen without there being serious, real life consequences. That rule hit new heights with the climax of Season 2, which saw Quentin kill Ember, God of Fillory, to save the universe from destruction. The price? The complete eradication of magic, not only from Fillory but from Earth too. The idea of The Magicians without magic should be laughable, dull and pointless, and so it’s to the show’s credit that it still manages to intrigue, surprise and – most of all – entertain.
That’s partly because we have the curious fact of Julia being able to do some form of spell, as they team up to try and get Bacchus to help them. The only problem? He gets bored if he isn’t partying, so they have to down shots and perform a genuinely terrible 10th grade dance to get into his crib. Alice and Penny have their own promising strands to follow. Eliot, meanwhile, is facing war with the Faeries, but not before he’s distracted by The Great Cock in the woods (a peacock, that is) and ends up on a library-related quest that promises to bring a lot of characters’ threads together. And, in the middle of it all, there’s still the time for a standout exchange between Eliot and Margo, who realise the Faery Queen is spying on them and immediately switch into pop culture speak to communicate in code – dropping in references t everything from Battlestar Galactica to Buffy and Gossip Girl. What a delight.
The Magicians: Season 1 to 5 are available to watch online on Amazon Prime Video as part of a Prime membership or a £5.99 monthly subscription.
