I'll Put A Spell On You

Well, a Hex anyway.

I'm referring to the new series on cable television's BBC America, "Hex". It was originally described as a British "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but watching it I'm more inclined to describe it more as the original movie version of "The Omen" meets television's "Smallville", with a hint of "Buffy" (more Willow than Buffy) mixed in for good measure. It's about a young woman discovering that she has inexplicable powers, and trying to hide those powers from the people around her while being thrust into a supernatural world of mystery.

What I find particularly fascinating about it is that the concept behind the show has the exact same basis in biblical lore that my concept of Nimrod's world has; we've come up with the same ideas centered around the Nephilim, but branched off into completely different directions with it. Whereas Hex's Cassie is a witch dealing with a fallen angel who wants to use her and her developing powers for his own evil cause, my Nimrod is more a recluctant hero who finds himself also dealing with fallen angels and their evil cause, while picking up clues to his own supernatural abilities along the way. Both of them have what I call the Eye, that ability to see inside the supernatural world.

I don't want to give away clues to Nimrod's background, but I can't help but see parallels in Cassie's eventual mission as it relates to Nimrod's existance. Their worlds intertwine in ways I'd never have imagined someone else's writing would blend so seamlessly with mine, and rather than be annoyed by that discovery I'm thrilled. It's offering me the opportunity to see what it might have been like for Nimrod as a younger man, if his lifepath had taken a completely different (and less chaotic) turn.

Cassie is the innocent angel to Nimrod's devil, and yet they're both cursed in their own way.

I think it also gives me some degree of comfort to know that the ideas I've come up with for my story concept aren't as far off the reservation as I thought they were, and that they DO work.

It's as if I've been given a preview of my own writing, before I've completed it. It's a nice vision.

Hex is, by the way, a great show. The producers have done a wonderful job of imparting those sudden flashes of the paranomal that Cassie is slowly but surely being introduced to, her insights into the world behind the silk veil that show a world of witches and demons. It's less an action series than it is a drama, a reverse of what the Buffy and Angel series were. Cassie is a girl afraid of what she's discovering about the world within her world, and what powers may be inside of her. She doesn't know who or what she is, and it both frightens and excites her.

It's only made harder when she realizes she has no friends to rely on. Or at least, none in this world.

Definitely worth watching. I know I will.