Well... I jumped some regional restrictions and 'moved' to the US temporarily to be able to watch these episodes, so I've seen the first two.
Quite good. First impressions:
Spoiler:
- The Chosen Race: it's certainly more engaging to name the Chosen like that, than having the tree touch a few of the Elves on the shoulder. Also it gets people to root for Amberle from the start; at least, it worked for me.
- Huge mistake / bad change: Amberle says that she would be the first Chosen. That is impossible. The Ellcrys is always a female, and always part of the Chosen (except for the very first of course), so there have always been female Chosen. In the later books, the Ellcrys tells one of the Chosen of that time that she always picks a female to be a Chosen, whom she sees fit to become her successor, should the need arise.
- Elves: Humans with pointy ears. I expected them to be more like LoTR elves. Also, somehow they look to be too perfect/pretty. It looked like there are no non-pretty Elves except when very old.
- Amberle: I expected her to be blond. Didn't she have red hair in the book? I like the new portrayal of the character. Strong, able to put up a good fight, bit with a bit of weakness and self-esteem issues as well.
- Eritrea: Instant dislike. Too pretty for someone living in the wilderness, too arrogant, too over-confident, and a backstabbing b****. I loved it when Amberle turned the tables on her. My dislike lessened as soon as Cephelo was introduced, threathening to sell her/marry her off. I *really* dislike Cephelo (which was the case in the book as well) and I hope she gets to kill him. In the book Cephelo is killed by a demon.
- Allanon. DUDE, what's with the hair?! And the glowing markings? No... just no. He should have had shoulder-length hair, and he should have been bigger. Allanon in the books is around 7 feet tall. He's okayish, but I had expected him to be more imposing.
- Wil Ohmsford: He would be Amberle's protector? At some point, Eritrea will join the quest, and both women are stronger and better fighters than he is. I certainly hope he mans up, learns to fight and learns to use those Elfstones. At this point, he looks more like a comedy relief character than one of the protagonists. He almost gets killed, then gets seduced, robbed (which also happens to Wil in the book, but it's not Eritrea 'working' single-handedly), and does stupid things like slipping and falling down Gimli-style, all in the first 80 minutes. I certainly hope this changes. Otherwise just cut him out of the story, give the women some soldiers for protection, and leave them to their quest.
- Up until this point, there are no comedy relief characters. Yay! (Although I did like Wil's quote, which went something like this: "So.... I need to use Elfstones I don't have, to protect a princess who doesn't want to be found, from demons who want to rip is apart. And, in the doubtful event I succeed, my life could still be doomed because of the magic. I liked it better when we didn't talk.")
- The demons: well done, AFAICT. The Dagda Mor and Shapeshifter are what I expected. Evil. The Dagda Mor exudes power; more so than Allanon. The Shapeshifter portrays cunning and slyness very well.
At this point, I'm inclined to say that this series has a chance of being OK to good.
It's definitely 'based on' The Elfstones of Shannara. (It says so in the intro as well.) If you are expecting a 1 on 1 transcription of the book, you'd better not watch.