Virginia Lewis (Williams) and her father Tony (Larroquette) have boring lives, until a golden retriever changes everything. The golden retriever is Prince Wendell (Lapaine), crown prince of the 4th Kingdom, who is under an enchantment. He is pursued by clueless troll siblings Blabberwort (Lewis), Burly (O'Gorman), and Blue Bell (Birkett). When life gets complicated, Virginia and Tony follow Wendell back to his kingdom. The 9 Kingdoms are the homes of fairy tale legends, a century after their golden age.
Wendell's step mother, the Queen (Wiest) is trying to control all 9 kingdoms, with a stand-in for Wendell. She is assisted by the Troll King (O'Neill) and a series of magic mirrors. With the help of Wolf (Cohen), who falls for Virginia at first sight, can they restore Wendell's kingdom and return home?
A friend introduced me to The 10th Kingdom when I was college, and it was love at first sight. I love fairy tales and I love the idea of our world interacting with the fairy tale world (so I love TV's Once Upon a Time). These are not the fairy tales of our childhood, the basic ideas are there.. but different characters are experiencing the events. For example, there is a Rapunzel-esque sequence where one character has super long hair and is trapped in a tower, but the character is not Rapunzel and things don't quite happen the way they do in fairytales.
"We either live happily ever after or we get killed by horrible curses"
The characters are entertaining. Scott Cohen steals the show as Wolf (he says the quote at the beginning of this post). He gets the best lines and is a fun and intriguing character. The Troll kids (pictured above) are funny as a group, especially when they find the boombox that plays "Night Fever." They just about steal the show. Kimberly Williams is adequate as the lead / audience surrogate. She starts out cold and distant, but becomes the heroine you want to cheer on.
Originally, there were plans to create a second season of the miniseries, with a different crisis for Virginia to solve... they hint about it at the end of the series. However, the miniseries was not as popular as they expected, and the studio decided not to pursue a second season.
The entire miniseries is available through Netflix Instant streaming.
The 10th Kingdom (2000) 417 minutes
Director: David Carson and Herbert Wise
Starring: Kimberly Williams as Virginia Lewis
Scott Cohen as Wolf
John Larroquette as Tony Lewis
Dianne Wiest as Queen
Daniel Lapaine as Prince Wendell
Ed O'Neill as Relish the Troll King
Rutger Hauer as Huntsman
Dawnn Lewis as Blabberwort the Troll
Hugh O'Gorman as Burly the Troll
Jeremiah Birkett as Blue Bell the Troll
Robert Hardy as Chancellor Griswold
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