“The Librarians”—They’ve got to be kidding

No halfway decent writer watched “The Librarians” debut on TNT recently without at least the passing thought: “They’ve got to be kidding. I could have written that.” Followed quickly by, “No, they’re not kidding. Here it is. A real show. With real actors. And maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t write it…”

After the endearing material of “Leverage,” “Warehouse 13,” and even the original “The Librarian” movie, I was almost childishly optimistic about the new series. And the following team contributed to that:

John Larroquette: With a wonderful provenance extending back to the age of silent pictures.

Christian Kane: From “Leverage.”

Rebecca Romijn: From X-Men.

But if you showed up at the debut of “The Librarians” as I did—like an optimistic kid checking out a new book at the library—you were likely disappointed. “The Librarians” is a dusty, almost illegible tome entrenched in the dreary decimal system of another age.

If you close your eyes, you’ll know it’s not the actors’ fault. They seem talented enough—some with excellent bona fides—and with a few exceptions you see it in their eyes: They are there, really there, as much as they can be in the ridiculous circumstances in which they find themselves. It’s when you close your eyes that the problem immediately becomes apparent: The writing is just so bad. And with today’s TV realities, it may not even be the writers’ fault. How many people intervened between the plot as reflected in the original script and the recorded spoken word on the screen? Truly, it may have been the country of North Korea that got involved in the final editing.

Some good actors, decent special effects, script refereed by North Korean censors out for revenge: poor showing for “The Librarians.”

Many writers—with eyes wide open—reacted this way:

Janet Leigh: From “Psycho” and now ingrained in the American psyche.

Some better writing available at Fantasy Crow. If it gets to a large or small screen, though, all bets are off, especially if Kim Jong-un is involved.