After the Teen Wolf Season 5B premiere I watched The Shannara Chronicles premiere. First, let me say, no I have not read the books, yes I intend to read them very soon. My review and opinions are solely based on the show. Of course there will be spoilers in this article 😉

I’ve been seeing previews to this show and was really wanting to watch it. Like I said, I haven’t read the books yet, but, this first season is based off of The Elfstones of Shannara, the second book of Terry Brooks’ Shannara series, leaving some fans wondering why MTV didn’t start with the first book. I’m sure they had their reasons. Maybe they’ll address that at some point,  if they haven’t already. Ok, so I watched the two hour premiere as well as the third episode on MTV.com. I’ll be watching the fourth episode on the site in the next couple of days. There was quite a lot going on in these episodes so forgive me if I leave things out.

This is set in the future. Skyscrapers, helicopters, and few things of our time are around but are centuries old.

We start off with Elven Princess Amberle as she is training for an age old tradition to become of  the Chosen. It’s a blindfolded race through the woods, male only until Amberle. The first seven across the finish line are the Chosen, who look over a magical tree called the Ellcrys. Legend says the tree keeps Demons from invading the Four Lands. Amberle wins a spot as one of the Chosen. Part of the ceremony is each of the Chosen places their hand on the tree to be accepted, when Amberle does so, the tree gives her a vision of demons, blood, and slain loved ones.

Amberle’s grandfather, the King, believes the Ellcrys does indeed hold demons back, having witnessed magic in his youth, however, his sons believe magic and demons are just a fairytale. There’s a lot of talk/arguing about this here and there throughout the episode. Amberle fears her visions,  fears she set this in motion by breaking the rules and becoming one of the Chosen. She runs away, searching for answers.

They talk about a war of the races but haven’t got really gotten into what happened, other than the Elven King winning the war and uniting the Four Lands. Not sure how Elves came about but I’m sure they’ll get into later.

Next we have Wil Ohmusford, a half him an half elf at his dying mother’s bedside. Right before   She dies she gives him a pouch, that belonged to Wil’s father, containing elfstones. Last thing she says before she dies is “find the Druid”. Against his uncle’s wishes, Wil leaves home. Along his journey, he comes across a Rover girl, Erectria, well really she came upon him. Rovers are human thieves, scavenger types, kinda. Erectria fools the naive Wil and she robs him, taking the elfstones.

Erectria and Amberle have a brief encounter in the woods, where the princess gets the best of the Rover.

Somewhere in there, the last Druid, Allanon, awakens from a magical hibernation. The Ellcrys is dying and its calling to Allanon. He visits the tree and lets the King know, Demons are coming. The King’ s sons don’t believe this fairytale and Allanon is completely upset the King has allowed his children to believe magic wasn’t real. He goes on to explain that each leaf of the tree represents a demon, and when the leaf falls, a demon walks the earth. Total bad news. Allanon sets out to find the elfstones and Wil.

Allanon finds a elfstoneless Wil. He tells Wil that he comes from the Shannara bloodline, a line of Kings, that Wil has magic running through his veins. They return to the King and all of the Chosen apart from Amberle have been murdered. At Allanon’s request, Wil searches the princess’ room. He finds some letters and quickly learns Amberle has gone to her Aunt’s place. This is where you find out the aunt has been banished for loving Allanon.

The Druid and Wil go to retrieve Amberle before she is also murdered. Upon arriving, Wil goes to Amberle at the waterfall, while Allanon and the aunt exchange a few words. Wil has to explain who he is to Amberle before she takes off his head. As they are coming back to Allanon, a winged demon attacks….

So at the end of the premiere, you’re left with a huge winged demon overhead, and the elfstones in the possession of Erectria, who has taken them to her “father”.

Episode three will be on next Tuesday night at 10pm on MTV. If you just can’t wait  head over  to mtv.com and watch episodes three and I believe they have four up now too, they’re suppose to anyhow.

I really liked this show. The effects were awesome, it was fun and entertaining. There were some funny parts. It definitely left me wanting for more.

Did you watch the premiere? If so, what did you think about it? Leave me a comment below or find me on Twitter @thenerdygirlexp