Adventures In The Library

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Dean Devlin is an interesting guy. And he has written or produced some of my very most favorit-est movies and television series. On the movie list would be Stargate (co-written and -produced), the two Independence Day movies (co-produced), and Geostorm (directed), which is a deeply silly movie but nonetheless very entertaining. Among the TV series to his credit are Leverage (which he produced and for which he directed 12 episodes) and the Librarian franchise (produced). Additionally, Leverage was filmed in Portland, OR and The Librarians was both filmed and set in Portland. It’s always fun to watch for landmarks I recognize…

The Librarian franchise is our focus here today, and includes three made-for-TV movies, starring Noah Wyle as the Librarian, followed by a four-season TV series, starring Wyle and others. The basic premise, as set up in the first movie The Librarian: Quest For The Spear, is that a library exists which houses and keeps safe both magical knowledge and artifacts. It is run by the Librarian, a position for which Flynn Carson (Wyle) is recruited in the first part of the film. Although this setup might sound similar to the Warehouse 13 TV series (and in fact, it is a similar setup), the Librarian movies preceded Warehouse 13 by a number of years. And the two series, while both fun, nevertheless feel very different from one another. I really like Warehouse 13 but I LOVE the Librarian franchise.

I won’t go into the three movies in any detail, except to say that the first one is good, the second one is utterly forgettable (no really…I don’t remember anything about it), and the third one is also good. It is not at all necessary to watch the three movies before diving into the TV series, although the series has a number of little callbacks to the movies that are fun, if you are in the know.

What I wanted to talk about today is the TV series…specifically, my favorite episodes, and I’ll discuss them in chronological order.

——————————Beware! Here be spoilers...——————————

Season 1, Episodes 1-2: And The Crown Of King Arthur, And The Sword In The Stone

This is more a two-part pilot than anything else. The opening sequence introduces us to Colonel Eve Baird, working for NATO. As she and her team storm a warehouse, attempting to apprehend two terrorists making off with a nuclear bomb, she stumbles across our old friend, Flynn Carson, who is attempting to defuse a metaphysical bomb. They help each other, and then go their separate ways.

A few days later, Eve is sent an invitation from the Library to become a Guardian. She does show up at the library, where loner Flynn does his very best to make her feel unwelcome. Eve is no pushover and inserts herself into his investigation of former Librarian candidates who appear to be dying off, some “accidentally” and some openly murdered. The two realize that three candidates are still alive and they split up to go bring all three to safety in the Library. This introduces us to the “apprentice” Librarians, who along with Eve and Flynn are the main characters for the rest of the series

First up, we have Cassandra Cillian, a mathematical genius who has a small tumor in her brain which will eventually kill her. She calls it her “stupid brain grape” when it’s giving her headaches or nosebleeds. Watching her do math with some CGI displays in front of her, as if she were looking at a screen and manipulating it with her hands, is rather lovely and graceful.

Next up, we have Jake Stone, an Oklahoma oil-rigger, who is busy playing the part of good ol’ boy to hide his very high IQ from his not-very-understanding family. He is knowledgable about art, history, languages, and much more. He publishes academic work under a pseudonym, and is well-respected in academia while remaining completely anonymous. He’s also quite handy in a bar brawl.

And finally, Ezekiel Jones, an Australian master thief and hacker. He’s quite full of himself and not a little annoying, both to his fictional colleagues and to the watcher. Well, this watcher, anyway. However, he does fit in, his skills are necessary and useful, and just when one might think they can’t take another moment of his cockiness and self-aggrandizement (this author hates it when people talk about themselves in the third person), he does something thoughtful and moving and then one just has to put up with him for a little longer.

*Flynn builds a cutting torch from a first aid kit oxygen tank, a prosciutto-stuffed cucumber, and (presumably) wishful thinking.*

From the introduction of the main characters, the adventure then continues on around the world, eventually finding our intrepid team in possession of the crown of King Arthur, a magical object. They bring it back to the Library, only to be followed in by our season 1 main antagonist, Du Lac, who takes the Crown and Excaliber (which has been living in the Library for years and taught Flynn sword fighting). His intent is to “bring magic back into the world.” This sounds okay and even interesting on the surface until Flynn explains that unregulated magic would replace technology and wreak havoc on the land and all those living on it. The Library severs its connection to reality to avoid being further pilfered by Du Lac’s Serpent Brotherhood (the very henchiest of henchmen and -women). Flynn, Eve, and the newbies flee the Library, barely escaping.

The second episode starts immediately after the ending of the first, with our team stumbling out of a doorway into a forested area, which turns out to be in Oregon. There, they are met by “Jenkins” (played by the delightful John Larroquette), who runs an annex of the Library in Portland, Oregon. Sidenote: this is set up as being under the St Johns Bridge in North Portland, the beautiful supports of the bridge arching over Cathedral Park. If I remember the park correctly, the building they are calling the annex is a sort of old maintenance building, made of stone. It’s lovely.

*Oy vey…loud messy Librarians everywhere.*

Jenkins takes them to the annex, which looks like the Library inside, but which is much smaller, and isn’t actually connected directly to the main Library anymore. Using the magical card catalogue, they can still look at any books that are in the Library, but the artifacts are sealed away along with the Library itself. This second episode mostly takes place in London, where the team battles with Du Lac to recover the Crown and Excalibur. They do recover the Crown, but Excalibur is destroyed in the ritual to flood the world with magic. Du Lac and most of his henchmen escape. Flynn leaves the new Librarians to deal with the magical incidents that are now happening all over the world, with Eve staying to guard and guide them. Flynn departs to try to find a way to bring the Library back to the world, kissing Eve on his way out the door. Grumpy Jenkins is not pleased that the new Librarians are taking over his formerly peaceful space to do their work.

Season 1, Episode 10: And The Loom Of Fate

This is the season 1 finale and probably the episode I’ve rewatched more than any other. It’s just fabulous. Flynn returns to the annex with the news that he thinks he’s found a way to recover the Library. He is interrupted by Du Lac, who has smuggled himself in via an artifact (a sarcophagus, actually), and who leaps through the annex’s gateway to the Loom of Fate, which turns out to be a real loom. He cuts into the loom “right where it all went wrong”, which is to say, when Camelot fell. Because Du Lac is Lancelot Du Lac and he wants to return to the good old days, when kings and nobles ruled the world, and all the little people didn’t get to make any decisions for themselves. Eve and Flynn leap after him but are not quite quick enough to prevent him cutting into the Loom.

Eve then finds herself on a journey through different timelines. As she jumps through each one, she is accompanied by Flynn, who does not know anything about the Library. She meets the other three Librarians in their own (depressing and occasionally apocalyptic) timelines, and eventually manages to make her way back to the Loom with Flynn. She tells him to re-weave the Loom while she holds off Du Lac. But Du Lac is a crafty fellow and he has reverted to his younger appearance (entertainingly played by actress Rebecca Romijn’s actual husband, Sliders alum Jerry O’Connell). Du Lac manages to fatally stab Eve and is just about to finish off Flynn when Jenkins appears. Jenkins is surprisingly handy with a sword, so it’s not really a shock when we find out he is Galahad. He rebukes Du Lac and holds him off long enough for Flynn to finish his repair to the Loom, at which point Du Lac vanishes from the timeline and we don’t see him again. Jenkins and Flynn carry Eve back to the annex, where they manage to heal her. And at the end of the episode, Flynn does bring back the Library.

Season 2, Episode 10: And The Final Curtain

*Flynn has a cunning plan. Eve is skeptical.*

Throughout season 2, the main villain is Prospero, who has made his way out of The Tempest into the real world. He is occasionally aided by quasi-villain Moriarty, who has also escaped the Sherlock Holmes books to run around wreaking havoc. Episode 10 is the season 2 finale, and finds that Prospero is using magic to knock out technology and re-forest the world. Whole cities are vanishing into vast woodlands.

*Eve retrieves Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake.*

Eve and Flynn decide the only thing to do is to travel through time to when Shakespeare was writing The Tempest. The time machine shatters after they use it, stranding them. They arrive to find that Shakespeare is being possessed by Prospero, who is zapping anyone and everyone with his magic staff. He knocks Eve into a lake, and she rises up out of it holding Excalibur. It’s really quite a lovely Lady-Of-The-Lake image. Flynn defeats Prospero with the help of Excalibur while back in the current time, the other Librarians and Jenkins are setting up for an exorcism, using artifacts that have been left for them (by Flynn and Eve, as it turns out). They cast out Prospero, leaving behind Shakespeare. A portal opens, allowing Shakespeare to return to his own time, but Flynn and Eve are stranded in the 1600s.

After leaving all the artifacts and hints and clues that they themselves would need to find in the future (our present), they have Shakespeare use the magic staff one last time to turn them into statues (a la The Winter’s Tale) and ship them off to the Library, where they are discovered by their Librarian colleagues. Cassandra’s voice is the key that transforms them back into living beings. As she says, “You did time travel the long way around!”

Okay, I have to admit that this whole time travel plot is so riddled with holes and inconsistencies and complete nonsense that it does not bear close scrutiny. I have to shut off the (quasi) logical part of my brain when I watch this episode. But if one can suspend disbelief and just enjoy the adventure, it’s really very fun.

Season 3, Episode 6: And The Trial Of The Triangle

This episode begins with Flynn stopping in at the Library to rummage around for the Eye of Ra, which he thinks will allow him to defeat Season 3’s villain, the evil Egyptian god Apep. He is seized by several masked figures who then reveal themselves to be Eve and the other Librarians. They handcuff him to a chair and force him to listen to a “list of hurts.” The gist of the various complaints is that Eve and the Librarians are unhappy that Flynn is usually away, behaving as if he is acting alone, and only occasionally dropping by to bark orders at everyone before he leaves again. This little bit at the beginning of the episode is both funny and oddly moving.

Onward to the main story—the Librarians (all of them) decide that the Eye of Ra has been hidden away in the Bermuda Triangle by a former Librarian and they go to drastic lengths to retrieve it. Flynn ends up trapped in the Triangle, working through a surreal Alice In Wonderland environment, with the various characters played by the other members of the team. Flynn does eventually make it back to the Library with the Eye, and as he shows it to Jenkins, they both acknowledge that in order to use the Eye against Apep, a human sacrifice must be made. Flynn decides that when the times comes he will sacrifice himself, and he and Jenkins agree not to share this little tidbit with the others.

I enjoyed delving into one theory about the mysterious Triangle (okay, theory might be a strong word but work with me in the suspension of disbelief). I loved the beautiful and weird aesthetic of the Triangle. And while the interactions between characters are always entertaining, this episode was particularly funny and particularly poignant.

Season 4, Episode 12: And The Echoes Of Memory

This is the second of a two-part series finale, but it more or less stands alone. Season 4 was a little different from the other seasons in that, while there is an overall villain in the form of Flynn’s former guardian Nicole Noone, many of the episodes are still more or less standalone stories. Nevertheless, at the beginning of this episode, Nicole manages what she has been working toward for a long time, the dissolution of the Library. Not only does the Library cease to exist…it has never existed. The world is bland and colorless (literally…eveything is black and white or washed-out sepia tones until near the end of the episode) and Eve Baird is the only person who remembers the Library. And Nicole gloatingly warned her that Eve would forget, and then the Library would really be gone forever.

Eve sets out to find the Librarians, collecting them one by one from their strange and boring lives, overseen by The Company. I have to say that this eerie portion of the episode, featuring people doing extremely mundane tasks in perfect unison while occasionally being threatened by the Thought Police, reminded me of the dark world in Madeline L’engle’s classic novel A Wrinkle In Time. I read that book as a child and I vividly remember being absolutely terrified as the dark entity IT tries to override free will and pound the main characters’ thoughts into conformity. And before you ask, it’s no relation to the Stephen King novel It, which was published 24 years later.

*The Librarians manifest the Library through the power of positive thinking. Or something.*

Once all the Librarians have been reunited (in an insane asylum, as it happens, complete with involuntary electroshock therapy and unwanted lobotomies), they pool their memories and manifest the Library around them. That part is a little silly (okay, a little sillier than usual) but it was still fun and a bit charming.

There are a few more loose ends to wrap up, but I won’t bother explaining them, since I don’t plan to explain all of season 4. Watch the episode! Better yet, watch the whole series.

As of this writing, a new series is coming out from Dean Devlin, called The Librarians: The Next Chapter. I haven’t seen any of it yet, but I anticipate it will be just as fun as the first series.

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