I doubt many would have noticed or cared about the distinction.

Clearly you haven't seen the fan fiction archives...

Now about what works and what doesn't.
This wasn't about what a TV audience can make sense of, they can make sense of everything from "The X-files" to "Fringe" and track the twist and turns of Walter ( Who is "grey" morally if ever a sympathetic character was.) and the seasons end of "Burn Notice" has just put Michael Weston in immediate moral peril that's been building for 3 seasons now.

You're talking about the first season of a forty minute an episode urban fantasy.  The shows you're comparing to to are high budget major network productions that were long established before they added any real complexity to the storyline.  Do you remember the first season of X-files?    It's nothing like the final season.  It was two FBI agents with a week by week strange paranormal or extraterrestrial case that Dana would try to explain away.

We're talking about the first season of a weekly TV series about a wizard living in modern day Chicago as a private eye with a past of having murdered his mentor who wanted to likely use him as a weapon, meanwhile his female cop friend is having trouble adjusting to his supernatural world and is highly suspicious of everything.  When you think about it that's a lot of plot to cover in just twelve episodes.  There's simply not enough room to overly complicate Bob's back story with something that hasn't even been fully covered yet in the books thirteen years into the series.

Consider also Scifi only had the rights to the first five or six books.  If Jim Butcher had finally elaborated on Bob's back story with a clear cut explanation they would not be allowed to use it.   And the explanation has to cover: 1.  Why Harry doesn't question his lack of past.  2.  The still running headache inducing debate about free will (because the Dresdenverse definition of free will is VERY questionable that being bound by an enchanted skull suddenly destroys will. No, freedom and free will are not the same thing. They should NOT be treated like the same thing. It's highly disrespectful to real historical slavery because they were stripped of freedom as well, just their chains were physical, not magical.  Bob's shifting personality according to his owner can be viewed as the lack of free will but what about the claim that the faeries have no free will just because they can't lie?  That doesn't make sense to me.  3.  What Bob's original personality was.  The fact is once it was revealed that Bob's personality in the books was not really his own, but an adaptation of Harry's subconscious when he first met him, I lost intersted in the skull all together (so did most of the Hrothbert of Bainbridge fans).  How can anyone really care about a character whose personality is nothing more than something programmed?   And Harry doesn't stop to ask or wonder what his SLAVE'S original personality was?   That's kind of cruel when you think about it.   Without several books to try to justify it the TV audience is going to be turned off by it.   I am turned off by it.   That's why I've stopped looking forward to the skull's snarky scenes in the books.

Also I'm partial to human soul spirits.   The actual continued consciousness of an individual after death.   Other flavours of spirit bore me after a while.   They're vanilla to my rocky road ice cream.   

Terence Mann as Bob struck me as a necessary change, that was correct even if turning him to the remaining half of a pair of star-crossed lovers wasn't.

Again, clearly you haven't seen much of the Dresden Files fan fiction archives.  Even in fanfiction net you'll find more fan fictions mentioning Winifred than Mab.   When you consider how rarely Winifred was even mentioned this is pretty impressive.   Over two hundred of the three hundred Dresden Files fan fictions on fan fiction net contain the show version of Bob or have tweaked the skull version of Bob to be the ghost.   Not necessarily on this forum, but in general, you're going to find the ghost version of Bob was liked more, and not just because he was physically standing there.

You can't blame Terrence Mann's Bob being a ghost on what ended the show.  The show had high ratings (go to neilson's website archives if you don't believe me).  There were times when the show's ratings beat those of Battlestar Galatica.    Check the forum archives of syfy's own forum for the show.  There was a poll back in 2007 on who was your favourite character on the show.    Guess who beat Harry Dresden himself by about twenty five percent more votes? 

In fact, I came across a very recent interview with Terrence Mann where he was asked about Dresden Files. Apparently he's still getting fan e-mail asking him about Bob and Winifred and if there's a chance he'd ever play Bob again.   Simply do a google search.  Hrothbert of Bainbridge has more fans than the spirit of intellect ever had.   So, like it or not, people with the same views as me (and there are more of us than you may realize) really liked him as a ghost and probably would have loathed a spirit of intellect even if it was Terrence Mann.  That's not enough humanity.  There's more to humanizing a character than giving him a physical / visible body.   We're not that shallow.

  

Out of curiosity would this be an original Highlander style immortal or a canon Highlander immortal?   I'm partial to Methos from the TV series, myself.

I didn't quote you. I just said I remember hearing in one of the episodes that he said his mother couldn't take the moving around and had left. I never said YOU said that. I just said if there is that quote, you would remember and list it.

Please read things before you freak out on people and send them private msgs saying things they didn't say.

Thanks!

That line is never said. (And it contradicts very important parts of Birds of a Feather and What about Bob).   You must have really misheard a piece of dialogue and I think I know which one.  I've been part of the weekly view in for two years having only missed it maybe five times, that means I've watched Dresden Files once a week for two years. You got it mixed up.  And I think I know where your mistake is.  In the Bad Blood episode, Harry's drunk and a little slurry, he mentioned complaining as a child because of all the moving around.  Bianca tries to console him by saying that's what children do, they complain. I think you misheard him in that scene.  If you have trouble with how he sounded in that scene the closed captions are pretty accurate.

And, honestly? Ghost-Bob was pretty awesome. He was played very well, too. Heck, if a new series was made, I'd want Bob to be done like that again.

I agree.   Terrence Mann as Bob / Hrothbert of Bainbridge was probably one of the best things about the show.  I was very disappointed we didn't get to learn more about his backstory.

 

I got a couple of ideas for the White Court:

Thomas - Jonathan Rhys Meyers



Thoughts??

He's perfect.  I loved him back in Velvet Goldmine.  But can he do an American accent?

No, I'm saying that he has the ability to bring out the humanity of the character and you actually rise above considering the color of his skin.

She's right. A truly good actor can excel past his own appearance.  In the Lestat musical an African American actor played Marius (a man of Roman / Celtic descent) and at least in the San Francisco production (the writing was seriously dumbed down in New York) he was fantastic in that role.

   

I love Jims work and always will but the TV series is a goner and it's better for that.

There are a lot of us here who did and do like the show.   Realistically there are certain aspects of the books that simply cannot translate well on TV and I feel at least with Harry Dresden that was very much the character of the books.