Yikes.<br /><br />First of all, I would like to say that unlike many people here, I apparently am on of maybe 3 people who are capable of reading the BACK OF A BOOK. Yes, kids. When we are the slightest bit vigilant instead of gazing with gaping maws at a television set, we notice things.<br /><br />THIS IS A SERIES THAT SPAWNED A BOOK, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. SERIES FIRST, BOOK SECOND. Get it? Now that that is out of the way... I was one who picked up the book first and then went to the series. I had great interest in tracking it down to compare the series with my imagination. My boyfriend, in his kindness, found it for me and bought it as a gift.<br /><br />With all respect to his kind endeavor, I almost wish he hadn't spent the money.<br /><br />After crafting characters in your imagination from reading a book, it is expected that your perceptions will not measure up with a visual/audio representation of the same. I was shocked to find Richard to be a clumsy fool who is painful to watch, let alone sympathize with. Door becomes a character with little to no mystique about her, far removed from my perceptions of a charming and oddly elegant ragamuffin. Similarly, the bravado of Hunter is turned into that of a psychotic cave woman, with the brilliantly deadly Croup and Vandemaar far less like their "wolfy and foxy" counterparts that I had dreamt up which amazed and terrified me.<br /><br />That aside, I do realize that there is little sense in comparing the latter to the former and expecting to have something made *BEFORE* the previous medium I had read be considered the thing to be changed.<br /><br />It is for this reason that I beg people who have seen the series to not give up on Gaiman. His novelization of this series is far superior in terms of storytelling, character development, presentation, etc. I do have to say that it was a darn shame to have all of the beautiful characters I had imagined and the intricate world that captivated me so reduced to this. PLEASE read the book if you want a better presentation to a wonderful story. This truly would be unwatchable if it weren't for Gaiman's inventive story and charming dialogue, even if it is utterly butchered by mediocre acting and very poor budgeted sets.<br /><br />All in all, please read the story if you want a great adventure and steer clear of this series unless you are unshakably a Gaiman fan.<br /><br />And I DO mean unshakable.<br /><br />However, if you did get past all of the above problems and loved it still, I highly recommend running headlong from you television sets and diving in to American Gods, The Sandman, or any of the other fine written works of Neil Gaiman.<br /><br />In short, please, just save yourself the time and money and read a book.