After tonight’s Childhood’s End finale, Syfy is giving viewers a commercial-free sneak peek at the first episode of the upcoming series The Magicians, which has its official 2-hour premiere on January 25.

Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph, Manhattan) is a bit of a wallflower—he’s always felt different, and would rather get lost in the world of his favorite fantasy book series rather than party with his friends. One day Quentin and best friend Julia (Stella Maeve, Chicago P.D.) find themselves magically transported onto the campus of the mysterious Brakebills University, just in time for a magical aptitude admissions test. They soon discover talents they never knew they possessed, and a desire to attend this school they never even knew existed.

Brakebills University is the upstate New York equivalent of Hogwarts, where twenty-somethings from all over come to hone their magical skills. However, there are some dark, sinister forces at work, and almost all of the third year students have either died or disappeared without any explanation.

Quentin’s new classmates include roommate William “Penny” Adiyodi (Arjun Gupta, How to Get Away with Murder), who always seems annoyed with the others; Alice Quinn (Olivia Taylor Dudley, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension), who comes from a talented family of magicians, but is more concerned in discovering what happened to her brother; Eliot Waugh (Hale Appleman, Smash), who has been at Brakebills for a while and seems to know everything that’s going on, and Margo Hanson (Summer Bishil, Lucky 7), who loves to party.

The pilot introduces us to this fantastical world and characters, sets up a really interesting mystery, and leaves us with a tense, creepy cliffhanger that made me really anxious for the show’s return in January!

In tonight’s episode, a group of twentysomethings studying magic in New York discover a real-life fantasy world that poses a great threat to humanity in this drama adapted from Lev Grossman’s book series.

I’ll also be watching/recording Survivor, American Horror Story: Hotel, and Childhood’s End.