There’s nothing wrong with going into a literary adaptation cold. It even has its advantages.
immediately and dramatically swerved away from its source. Plenty of fans were mad about it; I was happy I could watch a television show in peace.I enjoy occupying the literary fan’s viewing position from time to time, but that’s only one way to appreciate an adaptation.
There’s something freeing, in this way, about watching an adaptation—visibly groaning under the weight of expectation—and being able to say, “Hey buddy, I get it. You’re a TV series, not a book—I like you just the way you are.” These films and series are certainly indebted to their source material, but they cannot survive by sharing a nervous system and a heart with a book on a shelf.