The Spiderwick TV series is a disgrace to anyone who liked the books.

Original version published on Medium.

Warning: The following contains spoilers for all versions of The Spiderwick Chronicles (the books, the film, and the TV series).

In 2008, a movie adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles came out. Around that time, I decided to read the books. This made me around the same age as Mallory, and who doesn't love a kick-butt girl character with a sword? I loved those books as kid and liked to copy the sketches scattered throughout the volumes.

I didn't watch the movie until later and gave it a second watch in adulthood. The film is so-so, and despite cutting out a lot of material, the beginning and ending of story are relatively similar to the books. The Grace kids, Jared, Simon, and Mallory, move because their parents get divorced and end up staying at the crumbling mansion that belongs to their great aunt Lucinda. They discover that fairies (faeries) are real and must work together to stop the evil ogre Mulgarath. Nevertheless, the movie felt rushed and left out and changed several significant elements of the books.

Because of this disappointment, I watched the Spiderwick TV series released on Roku. My thought was that since it was a series, it would be able to take the time to actually follow the book series rather than try to cram five books into one film like the movie had. There was no place to go but up, right?

I could not have been more wrong. Read below for the major problems.

Total disregard and disrespect for the book

To say that the series' creators ignored the books would be an understatement. It's not like they just didn't read them. Oh, they read the books. This is obvious because of the obscure details they decided to keep in the TV series while blatantly ignoring basic things like the plot. For example, the TV series includes details like dragons needing milk to survive, fairy spit enabling people to see fairies, circles of mushrooms being entrances to elf-dwelling areas, and Arthur Spiderwick's brother being eaten by a troll.

But the story decides to throw out significant parts of the books.

The TV series doesn't include Simon's rescue from goblins or Jared and Simon saving Mallory when she gets kidnapped by the dwarves. The elves don't attempt to show the Grace children how human knowledge of fairies has led to destruction and pain. There's no tension from Jared pulling out his knife to protect himself from a shapeshifter and then it all looking like he threated a child with a knife.

Instead, Jared spends about three episodes trying to convince his siblings that fairies are real, a situation that is resolved by the end of book one. The Grace children spend a lot more time arguing and not trusting each other, something that is more of an underlying element in the books than the central plot and that has better resolution in the books.

The series also adds components that were never part of the books, like Simon running away to New York City to talk with his Dad, a quest to find the only sword capable of slaying Mulgarath, and quests to find the missing field guide pages.

The series also decided to highlight Jared's mental health struggles, something which is not part of the books. While this could have been a positive thing, producers opted for the overdone trope of "evil therapist" with Mulgarath the Ogre posing as psychiatrist Dr. Brauer. The series also opted to add an odd romantic relationship between Mulgarath and Helen, the kids' mom. Plus, Mulgarath, in his therapist form, receives A LOT of screen time, considering Mulgarath is only mentioned in book three and makes his first appearance at the end of book four.

Ineffective appeal to a target audience

The Spiderwick Chronicles books are geared towards a younger audience. The main protagonist is nine, and his older sister is thirteen, making kids in this age bracket the primary target audience of the series.

For the TV series, they opted to appeal to an older age demographic, with Jared and Simon being fifteen and Mallory being about seventeen or eighteen. Thus, the TV series had more freedom to lean into disturbing elements that the books only hinted at. However, the TV series added in disturbing elements that weren't present in the books, like Mulgarath describing poisoning and eating people. The disturbing components, as well as minor language and sexual elements, make it clear that the story is for older audiences. Still the dialogue and cultural references are so cringe that teens probably aren't going to consider watching the series.

Overall, this makes the target audience more people my age: people who enjoyed the books as children who were hoping for a bit of nostalgia and magic. However, since creators completely disregarded the source material, all the TV series managed to do was anger book fans. Thus creators missed out on appealing to kids, teenagers, and adults to who liked the books, leaving a narrow demographic of potentially satisfied watchers: adults who enjoy fantasy and don't care about faithful book-to-film adaptation. No wonder the series didn't garner much success.

New characters and elements, and struggles to root for anyone

Aside from magical creatures, the books have a small cast, focusing on the Grace siblings and their mom. This show adds in new characters who don't serve much purpose besides Calliope. Calliope was an odd addition, wholly invented for the TV series. However, the character was created by one of the original authors of the book series.

The series also adds in elements like people randomly sleeping because of the dragon-poisoned water and fungi-controlled people who do Mulgarath's bidding, while, again, ignoring the source material that they could have used instead.

Throughout the series, it became difficult to find a character to root for, with Simon's unclear loyalties, Helen developing a romantic attachment to the villain, and Jared's character shifting from his portrayal in the books.

In the books, Jared struggles to control his anger. He fights with his siblings and lies to his mom because he thinks she won't believe fairies are real. However, the books also highlight his love for his family and his willingness to fight to protect those he loves. He's flawed, but certainly someone that readers still find themselves rooting for. However, the TV series puts Jared's anger and mistrust at the forefront, highlighting some pretty cruel actions, particularly his treatment of Hatchet towards the end. It all made it very difficult to root for this version of the character.

A lack of fairies

For a fantasy series about mythical creatures, all broadly classified as fairies, there's a lack of fairies in the TV series. This was a common criticism I found in online reviews. Like in the movie, there are no elves or dwarves, which is disappointing every time, as these creatures have major roles in the books. Like, I know Tolkien did it the best, but Lord of the Rings doesn't have exclusive rights to these beings. Also, using prosthetics and other techniques means that these characters can mostly be created without CGI. So, why not include them?

Then there's the complete lack of goblins, which make up Mulgarath's army and act as excellent antagonists in the books. The beloved Hogsqueal, who is pivotal to Mulgarath's defeat in the books, is nowhere to be found, and the Sprites we see look a bit fake. Simon's griffin, which he nurses back to health, certainly isn't present, and we only get a brief glance at some unicorns. Instead, the series opts to add in fairies that aren't present in the books, like Valentina and Calliope, who look human most of the time and only have a few special effect moments.

Even though some of these changes could be related to budget, it was disappointing to not see the fairies that are critical components of the books.

A lack of resolution

To add insult to injury, the TV series decides to end on an odd cliffhanger, with supposedly Mulgarath showing up at the end as Jared, and Mallory, without hesitation, stabbing her brother through the heart with a mythical sword because she believes Mulgarath is the real Jared. I'm just saying that if a shapeshifter shows up pretending to be your brother, maybe dealing a death blow isn't the best option. Then Jared finds himself in the fairy sanctuary with Arthur Spiderwick, so maybe he's not dead, but still.

All of this sets things up for another season and means that we don't get a satisfying resolution at the end of the series. Mulgarath isn't defeated, and we have a supposedly untamable baby dragon. Yeah, I'm not entirely optimistic about the future.

I guess a good screen adaptation of the series isn't meant to be

I remember feeling this way after watching Hollywood's second attempt at A Wrinkle in Time. Both movie adaptations failed to follow the book in ways that left me highly dissatisfied. After watching these two attempts, I decided that A Wrinkle in Time is apparently a book that simply cannot be successfully transferred to the screen. I can understand this for some books due to the internal dialogue and elements that we just don't have the ability to show. A Wrinkle in Time doesn't seem to be one of these, but apparently, the filmmakers just cannot respect the source material enough to follow it, and I had to accept that things weren't going to change.

Two tries are apparently as far as I'm willing to go with The Spiderwick Chronicles as well. I guess directors and creators don't care about the books enough to make something that elevates them. The series could have been excellent, but it wasn't meant to be.

So, I come to the end of a piece that is the most ranty of any review I've ever written. The lesson? Is there one in all of this? Read. Most of the time, the books are better than the movie anyway. This is undoubtedly the case for The Spiderwick Chronicles. While the TV series wasn't geared towards children, the books are. So, if you're looking for the next set of books for the young readers in your life, it's a series that I still recommend. Because as someone on the internet wrote, we shouldn't judge a book by its movie. Or in this case, by its disappointing TV series.

Sources:

Wikipedia: The Spiderwick Chronicles (TV series) & Screen Rant interview

Disclaimer: I did read some reviews before writing mine, so I cannot pretend like every critcism is original. Common complaints in other reviews were cringe dialogue, not following the books, and a lack of fairies. I also remember reading a review of the books that discussed the positive components of the series that inspired some of the positive elements I noted about the books. I can't seem to find the review again, so I apologize for not being able to give proper credit. This is one of the book reviews I read though.