Episode Name: The Mortal Cup
Release date: 12 Jan. 2016
Running Time: 42 mins
Starring Katherine McNamara,Dominic Sherwood, Alberto Rosende, Matthew Daddario, Emeraude Toubia, Isaiah Mustafa, Harry Shum Jr.,Alan Van Sprang, Maxim Roy
Watch: Freeform (US) – Netflix (Worldwide)
Episode Review: 1|2

The Mortal Cup:

I went into Shadowhunters with no expectation. I wasn’t expecting it to be like the books, I wasn’t expecting it to be decent. And after I saw people’s comments after it aired in the US my expectations were even lower. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

The first episode (The Mortal Cup, directed by McG) starts off with a flash-forward that appears later on in the episode. It stars Jace (Dominic Sherwood), Alec (Matthew Daddario) and Isabelle (Emeraude Toubia) following a shapeshifter demon. It was certainly a clever way to start.

It showed that these people aren’t mundane, that they are different. We also get to see the first ‘bump’ between Jace and Clary (Katherine McNamara). Once the scene we see Clary going into her interview for arts school, and so the episode starts.

Casting:

Firstly the casting is perfect! I cannot explain how much I love this cast. When I see them, I can see them as the characters. It was truly well done.

At the start many people didn’t like the cast, but I do think they have portrayed them so well.

I truly loved Alan Van Sprang as Valentine. If anyone has watched his other works, especially Reign where he goes crazy; you would agree with me that he is going to a fabulous Valentine.

I was cautious about Katherine as Clary, simply because I hadn’t seen her in anything before and I was pretty impressed.

Characters:

Overall, I actually enjoyed the characters in Shadowhunters; New, Old and changed.

I like that they aged up the characters because who would let their 15/16 kids run around a city by themselves every day. 

I like Clary, she was feisty – I do wish she had a little bit more in her, but I hope to see that in coming episodes.

I wish Jace as a little bit more sarcastic and not so, I cannot even explain it. But, what I can say is that Dom had quite a decent American accent.

Simon = perfect. He was funny and nerdy and yes. Plus I loved the friendship between Clary and him. They hit that spot on. His lines were classics

Alec. He is hard and protective over Jace and beautiful. His lines cracked me up.

Izzy. Man this woman is beautiful. I didn’t like that she was a distraction the club, but I got over it quickly. She is much softer in the show from the books. It was different.

Luke, I like that he is a cop, it makes totally sense. There are all these crimes happening and they need someone on the inside to deal with it all. Cause if they didn’t the FBI would probably get involved.

Valentine: Perfect. He was creepy and intimidating. 

Magnus from what I saw of him, I am going too really like him.

Adaptation:

I wasn’t expecting it to be the same as the book. And if you were, then where have you been? It’s been said on twitter and tumblr by Cassandra Clare herself that it is different. And in all honesty that is how a TV Show works.

If they kept everything the same it would get tiresome pretty early and people will just stop watching. Has anyone read the Vampire Diaries or the Pretty Little Liar books because they are nothing like the TV shows.

I could still see the essence of the books in the episode. I saw the essence in the characters, in scenes, in locations. It was still there. The may have changed the way things happened here and there, but it was still the same.

If they kept it like the books, how are they supposed to have less than a week in 13 episodes – no thank you.

CGI:

It wasn’t that great. I truly was expecting more and I hope it does become better as the series goes on.

The demons were pretty okay looking, but the fighting scenes looked a little fake.

Runes:

The way they appear are certainly interesting and the way they put it on is very smart. I always thought it was…time consuming. If they are walking the street at night and then bam there is a demon, they don’t have the runes on them to fight. So what they would they do, tell the demon that they have to wait while they get ready to fight.

It was smart that all they had to do was swipe and then it was there. It made things more practical. 

Tech and Institute:

This is one of the biggest controversies that is being talked about in Shadowhunters.

Firstly, I don’t mind the tech. To me it makes total sense. They have changed the year to 2015/16 I am guessing to having high tech is normal.

Nonetheless, what I don’t like is them having so many people in the institute. I liked the small family closeness of what it was in the books so it having so many people was kind of a shock. 

Overall:

I quite enjoyed the first episode of Shadowhunters. It wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t horrible. I enjoyed it, my family enjoyed. There was a few problems and I hope that as the series goes on, this will change. Nonetheless, I will be watching the whole series for sure and I cannot wait to see what it brings.

I hope you enjoyed my discussion. What did you think of the very first episode of Shadowhunters. I’ll be back next week with my review of episode 2. 

I hope you enjoyed. You can find me on twitter at @angel_reads and on facebook and also on Instagram at angelreads. Subscribe to my email through the sidebar or follow me on bloglovin’ to keep up to date