Blast From The Past: The Tenth Kingdom

Blast From The Past: The Tenth Kingdom

The Tenth Kingdom is easily one of my favorite live-action fantasy shows...like ever. It somewhat falls victim to the cheesy dialog and ideas about fantasy that were popular at the time. But these are also what, at the same point in time, made it kind of good.

I think of movies like The Labyrinth, Legend, Mirrormask, Ladyhawke, The Princess Bride, Return To Oz, Willow, and so on; they all had that great cheesy 80s or 90s vibe to them but they are still some of the best fantasy films out there BECAUSE of that. Anyway, The Tenth Kingdom would fall into the same category of a somewhat stylized and cheesy fantasy piece, but it is part of what gives it its charm.

Oh and by the way, it has one of the most kickass show openings ever. No seriously. Just look at it!

By the way you can listen to the full version of the opening song here.

Now on to the summary.

The story follows a girl named Virginia who works as a waitress in New York. She lives with her father who works as the live-in repairman for a New York apartment building. Virginia is different than most protagonists of these types of stories because for one thing she is older. She is in her 20s, working at a dead-end job and has kind of resigned herself to living an average life. She thinks she might want to date someone at some point and start a family of her own but she really has no aspirations or hopes for a better life than the one she is currently living.

However, her hopes for a normal life are thrown out the window when a group of literal trolls straight out of Norse mythology end up in New York while trying to chase the current prince of the Fourth Kingdom (Prince Wendell White) who his evil step mother has turned into a dog. The Big Bad Wolf (who is more of a werewolf type of character in this story) ends up in New York too, as he was also hired by the evil queen to track down Prince Wendell as well.

As fate would have it, Virginia ends up finding the dog (unaware that he is Prince Wendell in dog form) and she takes him home with her in an attempt to find his owner. However, this brings trouble to her doorstep because the trolls and the Big Bad Wolf soon track the prince down. The Big Bad Wolf (later just called Wolf for convenience) runs into Virginia's dad, Tony, and offers him a magic bean that will grant him six wishes in exchange for information to where Virginia and the dog are. Virginia's dad is somewhat of a shady character (not bad per se, he usually makes the right decisions, but his flaw is that he is very greedy) so he decides to accept Wolf's offer and tells him where he can find Virginia and doggy Prince Wendell.

The Big Bad Wolf eventually meets up with Virginia who has decided to stay at her grandmother's house for a while. While Virginia steps out, he falls back into his habit of basically eating everything in sight (he is a wolf, after all) and decides to have the grandmother as a snack while he waits for Virginia to return. Virginia returns to find Wolf in her grandmother's apartment and promptly pushes him out of the apartment window with a broom when he refuses to leave on his own.

In an interesting plot twist, Wolf kind of decides that he likes Virginia, so he goes on a journey of self-improvement to try to be a good wolf in order to befriend her (this little journey is hilarious by the way).

Tony meanwhile is kind of abusing his six wishes on the magic bean (no surprise here). And like in most fairy tales, these wishes are MAJORLY backfiring on him (usually in fairy tales wishes are kind of more akin to curses, always attached with a condition, and this is no different here). One of the wishes leads to the police getting sent after him, as they assume that he stole a bunch of money (one of his wishes was to have a lot of money). When the police arrive at his doorstep, Tony tries to explain that everything is a big misunderstanding with little success.

Meanwhile, Virginia who now realizes that Wolf is after her because of the dog, decides to bring the dog back to the park and kind of drop him off there as she does not want to get involved with whatever is going on. She is perfectly happy living her average life as a waitress and she doesn't want to get swept up in some adventure. So she returns the dog to the park where she found him and tries to explain to him that she doesn't know how to help because she has no idea where he came from.

Wolf continues on his journey of self improvement by seeking professional help (the scene with the therapist is laugh-out-loud funny), Tony gets taken in for questioning by the police, Wendell doggy listens to Virginia try to explain why she can't help him at the park, and the Trolls (who have managed to get themselves stuck in an elevator while searching for doggy Prince Wendell) somehow get free and run off to try to find both Virginia who they know is taking care of the dog and doggy Prince Wendell.

While getting taken to the police station for questioning in a police car, Tony uses one of his wishes to escape the car. The car crashes into some tables at a local fair where Wolf is looking through a stack of self-help books the therapist from earlier had recommended he should read in order to become a good wolf and Tony uses the opportunity to escape from the car. Wolf uses the distraction to take all of the self-help books he needs without paying for them (although he is striving to be a better wolf, he still has some evil characteristics that surfaces from time to time).

Virginia tries to leave doggy Prince Wendell at the park but she runs into her dad Tony who is being chased by a police squad. Tony explains that he has been having a very bad day and urges Virginia to just give the dog to Wolf since the dog has been nothing but trouble since it has entered their lives. Virginia explains that she thinks the dog is trying to tell her something so Tony uses one of his wishes to be able to understand what Wendell doggy is saying.

Wendell doggy, now able to talk to Tony because of the wish, explains that they need to find the entrance to a magic mirror so they can all escape their pursuers safely. Meanwhile the trolls catch up with them, along with the police squad, and Wolf. In order to escape everyone, the three find the magic mirror and go through it to the alternate world.

The trolls and Wolf go through the mirror next. And this is the start of the huge adventure to find out a way to return Prince Wendell to his original form and stop the evil queen before she tries to take over the other 9 kingdoms of the world.

Sounds awesome right? That is because it is. I have watched this show so many times and it never gets old.

If you want to watch it for yourself, the entire series has been uploaded onto YouTube by an official distributor who has uploaded the series in parts one, two, three, four, and five.

And this is the official trailer if you want a little more information.