An average of just over half a million people watched The Magicians on its US Network, and I imagine even fewer watched it on whichever of the Channel 5s it was on in this country. I say on. I can find no evidence that the 4th season of this show was broadcast anywhere before it showed up on Amazon Prime recently, along with its first three seasons.

All of which means that you have the opportunity to watch this show that you probably didn’t watch but which is definitely bonkers enough to be worth your time. And the good news is that although this is exactly the kind of cult show that usually ends up being cancelled after half a season, it has miraculously survived for four, so there are 52! episodes! to! watch!, with 13! more! to come in season 5.

So what is The Magicians? As The Observer.com would have it, it’s basically sexy Harry Potter — well, that was the original premise. Lev Grossman’s original novel, upon which the series is based, was published in 2009, two years after the last of the original run of Harry P books was published. An 11-year-old who read The Philosopher’s Stone in 1997 was 21 when The Deathly Hallows appeared: old enough for graduate school, which is essentially what Brakebills University in The Magicians is.

I haven’t read any Harry Potter, by the way. Neither have I read Grossman’s novel(s). But I watch the TV show because, and this is important, it’s bonkers, hilarious, and brilliant.

So it’s what if Harry Potter but sweary and slightly sexy? Kind of. But also, what if smokin’ hawt magicians discovered a fictional magical realm (think Narnia, but sweary) was real and became kings and queens and fought battles and turned people into bears and discovered alternate timelines and had the occasional musical episode because Margo licked a lizard? And not just a musical episode, but one complete with snide remarks and bitchy rivalry.

“Great, a puppet show.”

Season One, I have to say, is merely competent television and focused too much on the magicians-at-university premise. But! With Season Two, the show licks a lizard and becomes both a little bit deranged and revels in that madness. With Season Three, and this almost never happens, it gets even better, even more demented.

The plots, about threats to the real world from the magical realm, about magic being switched on and off like a tap, about a Library that is reluctant to lend certain books, and which makes people sign eternal contracts to work there, about monsters who possess human bodies, are there to get the characters rubbing against each other, falling in and out of love, teleporting all over the place and occasionally, yes, licking lizards because they are thirsty.

So get thee to Amazon Prime and prepare yourself for a bumpy ride.