YA Fantasy/Paranormal Archives - Roger Hyttinen Author

Witches, Wolves, and Wasted Potential: Urban Fantasy on Screen

By Roger Hyttinen / July 25, 2025

Okay, fellow weirdos—can we talk about urban fantasy on screen? You know, all the witches, vampires, secret magical societies, demons with great cheekbones, and morally ambiguous love interests that somehow always have tragic backstories and a tendency to lurk in alleyways? Yeah, that genre. The one that raised us, disappointed us, and sometimes left us wondering if we could get a refund on our emotional investment.

Some shows blew my mind in the best way possible. Others… well, they felt like dollar-store spellbooks with missing pages. So here we go—my personal, deeply biased, occasionally snack-fueled list of urban fantasy hits, misses, and the shows that left me somewhere in between, wondering what might’ve been.

🔥 The Hits (aka the ones I’d let bite me)

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Let’s start with the queen, shall we? Buffy defined urban fantasy TV for a whole generation. We had sass, we had stakes (literally), and we had monsters as metaphors for every adolescent nightmare. It juggled horror and humor with actual character arcs. And now… a Buffy reboot is allegedly coming to Netflix soon. I’m cautiously optimistic, but seriously—can it hold a candle to the original? Or will it just feel like a high-budget fanfic in a world already saturated with reboots that forgot what made the original special?

2. Shadowhunters
Look, I know this one gets side-eye from certain corners of the internet, but I loved it. Yes, it was occasionally (okay, frequently) chaotic. And yes, sometimes the dialogue made me want to throw my remote. But it had heart, magic tattoos, cool-looking weapons, and Malec. Like, that pairing alone kept me emotionally invested far longer than was reasonable. Do I wish it had a bigger budget and stronger scripts? Sure. But do I regret binge-watching every episode and sighing dramatically through the finale? Not even a little.

3. Supernatural
I watched every episode. All 327 of them. And yeah, it probably should’ve ended around Season 5 (okay, maybe Season 11 at the latest), but Sam and Dean? Forever icons. That car, that classic rock, that weird mix of horror and dad jokes? Gold. I still get misty-eyed thinking about some of those emotional arcs. And honestly, what’s not to love about two brothers fighting monsters while slowly becoming them?

4. Teen Wolf
Yes, I’m putting Teen Wolf in the hits. Come at me. That show had absolutely no business being as good as it sometimes was. The vibes? Immaculate. The chemistry? Off the charts. Stiles Stilinski? A whole icon. Season 3A in particular was next-level, with its oni demons, sacrificial darkness, and psychological horror. Did it occasionally veer into the land of Beautiful People Running Through Fog With No Plot? Sure. But when it hit, it hit. And let’s be honest—we all wanted to be in that high school, even if the mortality rate was higher than average.

5. The Magicians
This show is what happens when Harry Potter grows up, joins a therapy group, and starts snorting pixie dust. It’s raw, hilarious, tragic, and just straight-up weird. Magic comes with a price, characters die, trauma is real, and Margo is a goddess. Literally. I still think about some of those musical episodes like they’re burned into my brain.

6. Being Human (UK)
If you missed this one, do yourself a favor and dig it up. It’s a vampire, a ghost, and a werewolf trying to live normal lives while being complete emotional disasters. It’s grimy, heartfelt, and somehow more grounded than most urban fantasy out there. Also, it made me cry over a ghost’s unfinished business, which is not something I expected to type, but here we are.

7. Penny Dreadful
Moody, gothic, and gloriously over-the-top. It felt like someone threw every Victorian monster into a blender and hit shakespearean angst. Eva Green should’ve been knighted for her performance. It’s not urban fantasy in the modern sense, but the spirit is there: monsters hiding behind society’s masks.

🚫 The Misses (aka shows I watched while muttering “You had one job”)

1. The Order
Magic college. Secret societies. Werewolves. Should’ve been awesome. Instead, it was like watching a CW pilot that never fully made it out of beta testing. The concept had so much potential, but the execution felt like someone fell asleep on the plot outline.

2. Charmed (2018 reboot)
Listen. I wanted to like it. I really did. The original Charmed had its own cheese factor, sure, but it worked. This reboot felt like it was trying to be woke and edgy at the same time, but forgot to be fun. Also, did the Book of Shadows get a software update? Because it felt… sterile.

3. Witches of East End
Great cast. Gorgeous visuals. Total snoozefest. It was like someone read the description of urban fantasy out loud but forgot to include the actual magic.

4. Bitten
Werewolves! Canada! A female lead with rage issues! I wanted to love it, but it just didn’t land for me. It lacked bite (pun very much intended). Also, the pacing felt like molasses on a winter morning.

😐 The Middle Zone (aka “almost…but not quite”)

There are shows that hit the vibe but fumble the follow-through. Stuff like Grimm (great concept, kinda boring execution), Lost Girl (sassy and sexy, but plotlines were a hot mess), or The Secret Circle (remember that one? It came and went like a shadow demon with stage fright). These shows lived in the awkward limbo between brilliance and bafflement.

Urban fantasy can be so good when it leans into the messiness of life and magic colliding. I want broken heroes, morally gray choices, and stories that aren’t afraid to get weird. But I also want competent world-building, solid scripts, and characters that feel like people—not exposition delivery devices in tight pants.

Anyway, now that I’ve thoroughly dragged and praised half the paranormal TV landscape, I wanna know: what are your urban fantasy faves? Drop them in the comments, yell at me about Shadowhunters, or whisper them to a stray cat under a full moon. I’ll probably hear you.

Have you read my latest book, “The Golem’s Guardian” yet? If not, you can snag a copy HERE.

Witches, Wolves, and Wasted Potential: Urban Fantasy on Screen Read Post »

Welcome to Homeroom, But With Spells — Why We’re Still Obsessed with Magical Schools (Especially Us Queer Folks)

Okay, real talk: I would absolutely have been the kid in the back row of Potions class pretending I totally meant to turn my cauldron into a small, hissing cabbage. And I would’ve loved every second of it. There’s just something about magical school settings that hits harder than a Firebolt to the face—and I think it’s about time we talk about why these stories keep tugging at our hearts, especially those of us who grew up a little (or a lot) outside the norm.

We All Want to Get the Letter

Let’s start here: the fantasy of escape. One day, you’re stuck in algebra class thinking about how your life is aggressively unmagical, and the next? Boom. A letter shows up saying you’re actually destined for something bigger. Like, “Here’s your wand, here’s your roommate, and oh, by the way, you have latent powers because you’re special.”

Tell me that doesn’t hit differently when you’ve spent your childhood feeling like the odd one out.

Whether it’s Hogwarts, Brakebills (The Magicians), Hex Hall, The Scholomance, or even Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters (yes, that counts—don’t fight me), magical schools offer this built-in narrative of “Hey, you’re not weird, you’re just magical.” And if that’s not a queer metaphor, I don’t know what is.

The Magic of Chosen Family

Here’s the thing: a lot of us LGBTQ+ folks have a complicated relationship with traditional family structures. Magical school settings often create space for chosen family—the best kind of found friendships that grow out of survival, shared secrets, and late-night sneaking into the library to research forbidden charms.

Think about Will and Jem in the Shadowhunter Academy (The Infernal Devices), or even the chaotic friendship dynamics in Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. You get these intense, emotional bonds formed in the pressure cooker of coming-of-age, with extra bonus points for dragons and magical duels.

And honestly? Watching queer-coded or explicitly queer characters find that kind of deep connection in a magical environment feels healing. It’s not just about the spells. It’s about finding your people. Even if one of them turns out to be half-demon.

Structure, but Make It Sparkle

Another reason magical schools are so satisfying? The structure. As someone who lives by lists but also dreams of floating through a dark forest talking to sentient trees, I get the appeal.

You’ve got the school year, the class schedule, the dormitories… It gives a familiar rhythm. But instead of gym class, you’re dodging hexes. Instead of bullies throwing spitballs, it’s rival houses flinging minor curses across the dining hall.

It’s comforting and thrilling. There’s a safe framework—class, homework, exams—but inside it, anything can happen. Your professor might be secretly a vampire. Your best friend might turn out to be a reincarnated phoenix. And you? You might finally learn that being different isn’t a flaw, it’s your gift.

The Queer Allegory Is Not Subtle, and We Love That

Okay, can we just acknowledge how many queer-coded narratives exist in magical school books? There’s a whole subgenre of “Oops, I kissed my roommate and now our magical bond is spiraling out of control and also we might be soulmates.” (Looking at you, Witchmark and The House in the Cerulean Sea.)

There’s also the fact that magic itself is often portrayed as something hidden or suppressed until the character embraces it. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s giving “closeted teenager finally coming into his own at wizard boot camp.”

Magical schools offer that sweet, sweet metaphorical buffet: repression, transformation, identity, power, found family, first love, and sometimes dragons. The queer parallels basically write themselves.

The Drama, Darling

Let’s be real—no one does high-stakes emotional drama like teenagers with magic. Especially queer teenagers with magic. The yearning? Off the charts. The angst? Breathtaking. The romantic subplots that simmer for 200 pages before exploding in a single magical kiss under the moonlight? Inject it straight into my veins.

If you’ve ever read “A Deadly Education” by Naomi Novik, you know what I mean. Or “The Witch King” by H.E. Edgmon, which unapologetically centers a trans protagonist navigating magic, trauma, and hot fae politics. There’s something deliciously cathartic about reading a story where the main character is both emotionally fragile and powerful enough to accidentally shatter a castle.

Closing the Spellbook (for now)

So yeah, I love magical schools. Always have. Probably always will. They’re not just fantasy—they’re wish fulfillment, especially for those of us who spent our formative years feeling like outsiders, hoping there was somewhere—anywhere—we might finally fit.

Give me a boarding school where the library whispers secrets and every student has a closet full of capes. Give me crushes that bloom under enchanted moons. Give me chaos and beauty and the kind of magic that makes you finally feel seen.

And if someone builds that school IRL? I’ve got my bags packed.