When Lev Grossman’s bestselling fantasy series The Magicians was adapted to series by Syfy, many were skeptical. While the series is obviously influenced by C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter franchises, this is no children’s story. This is a dark, adult world, one that seemed ill suited for basic cable television. But after a freshman season that explored it all and then some, expectations have been raised for the series’ second season.

Daily Brief had a chance to sit down with executive producers John McNamara and Sera Gamble, the showrunners of The Magicians, star Jason Ralph (who plays Quentin Coldwater), as well as the man who started it all, author Lev Grossman. Even now, they’re surprised with what they’ve gotten away with.

What can you tell us about season two?

John McNamara: The whole cast is back, but we can’t guarantee in what form they are back. Some of them have serious health issues coming out of season one. But I think the main thing we can say without spoiling is, this is going to be a season where we really get to know our characters and have them deeply involved in Fillory. It’s fun for like eight seconds and then they are running frantic, they are not trained for this. I think that they are wonderfully unprepared, and at the same time, find that they have much more strength and intelligence than they ever would have thought possible. They’re just thrown into this thing and it’s really great.

Jason Ralph: What’s exciting is the first season was about watching this universe expand. And every time we thought we had a grasp on what was happening, it turned out that it was ten times more complicated inside of a world that’s bigger than we could’ve imagined. One of my favorite questions that the book asks is: what happens when you get everything you want and you’re sitting atop the throne of your accomplishments and you’re still unhappy? And those things that you thought would make you happy, didn’t. To what end? It’s cool. And we’re beginning to ask those questions. I like that.

You crossed a lot of lines in season one. How did you guys make that happen?

McNamara: Honestly, I take no credit for it. The executives stepped in for us.

Sera Gamble: Syfy has really been committed to doing this show the way it should be done. We got one round of Standards and Practices notes stamped on the pilot, and then we got a phone call from our benevolent overlords telling us to not pay any attention to it. That they would be taking care of it. We have to clip the word f*** slightly. We try to do it artfully.

McNamara: In our first meeting with them they knew what they were getting into. In our first meeting with them, we were just like, we want to be clear. We’re not going to do the Disney version of this. It’s not going to be on ABC Family. They’re like, no, we want you guys to go further.

Lev Grossman: I expected to see some of the edge taken off the books, but when the scripts started coming in, they freaked me out. I thought I was too jaded for that. They cross a lot of lines.

McNamara: It’s because the world that Lev created is an ideal world for many different kinds of writers. Sera loves fantasy, but I was not a fantasy fan before this show. The psychology of these characters felt so completely real to me, and the fantasy was a metaphor for so many psychological and emotional things. What I really wanted to do was get to season two, so we could put all these characters in a fantastical world like Narnia, and have them be like, ‘Dude, I’d kill for a cellphone right now.’ Because that’s how I would talk if I was in Narnia. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. I love the way they talk in the book, in Fillory. It’s such good dialogue and leads to so many good things.

Gamble: No offense [to Lev], but the books are really dark.

Grossman: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Gamble: On the first meeting we took about making this show, we were happily all on the same page. They were interested in this story as it relates to mental illness, interested in the story that is a very adult version of Greek Mythology, and it really goes down the road of what happens when someone’s been sexually abused. Those are the underpinnings of the fantasy. Without it, I don’t think the show is the show.

If you had watered it down, it might’ve been cancelled by now.

McNamara: You never know. My fear would be if you water it down and it’s an even bigger hit. That’s happened to me.

Gamble: It’s more like, if it’s going to get cancelled you want to do it the way you want to do it.

McNamara: That’s why my nickname at other networks has become Doctor No. I did four or five shows, you can look them up on IMDb, I bet you know what they are, where they were kind of the Campbell’s version of the horse. One day I said to myself, why am I doing this? It’s six in the morning, I don’t see my family, I work on weekends, and I don’t even like the show. Recently, I’m just like, we’re going to do the show we want to make. If you want to do them with us and give us money, great. If not, we’ll find somebody who will. We’re not interested in being like the other kids.

Even the central starting point is a bold one: Quentin Coldwater is a frustrating and unlikable protagonist.

Grossman: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

What was your reason for choosing him as the center of the story?

Grossman: I was interested in writing about people who are struggling to find their way, who are struggling with depression, trying to become who they are. When people haven’t gone there yet, haven’t come of age, they have a lot of problems. They think about themselves a lot, they don’t know how to bond emotionally with other people. That’s just the reality of what that struggle is like, and I wanted to put it on the page and then they put it on the screen. Again, you could’ve watered it down, you could’ve had a relatable, fun guy…

Gamble: He’s the guy who would be at Comic-Con. He’s a fan. We’re fans. When the fan character gets to do this stuff, we get to see: how would that really be for him?

The answer isn’t pretty, and Syfy promises more dark magic in season two of The Magicians, premiering January 25 on Syfy at 9/8c.

[Cube image is courtesy of Syfy; body image courtesy of Nerdist]

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