The series follows the epic journey of a young woods guide named Richard Cypher (Craig Horner), a mysterious woman named Kahlan Amnell (Bridget Regan) and a wizard named Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander (Bruce Spence) to stop Darken Rahl (Craig Parker) from unleashing an ancient and terrifying power.

In 2009, the series won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series.

The Tribune Company decided not to renew the series on March 4, 2010. On April 26 Ausiello Files reported that Legend of the Seeker had been cancelled and would not return for a third season. Fans of the series have responded by launching a renewal campaign titled "Save Our Seeker". Terry Goodkind has expressed his support for the campaign.

The story takes place in the world author Terry Goodkind created in his The Sword of Truth fantasy novel series. The three main provinces are Westland, the Midlands and D'Hara. Westland is separated from the Midlands by a magical boundary, which was created to prevent any magic from entering Westland. On the other side of the Midlands is D'Hara, which is ruled by Darken Rahl. The Confessors oversee the welfare of the people of the Midlands.

The first season is loosely based on the first book of The Sword of Truth series Wizard's First Rule. Some of the stories feature events and characters not encountered in the books, while others loosely adapt events from the book. The story begins after the invasion of Darken Rahl's army into the Midlands. Kahlan Amnell (Bridget Regan), a Confessor, ventures into Westland in search of a wizard and the Seeker, who has been prophesied to defeat Rahl. Kahlan finds the wizard, Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander (Bruce Spence), and the Seeker, Richard Cypher (Craig Horner), who is forced to accept his destiny. Together, they set off on a journey to seek out Darken Rahl and his minions. They soon discover that in the process of defeating Darken Rahl, they unintentionally helped the Keeper of the underworld create tears between the veil of the underworld and the world of the living. Richard's quest in the second season is to find the 'Stone of Tears' to seal the rifts between the worlds and defeat the Keeper.

The series premiered on November 1, 2008 in the United States and is broadcast weekly on Saturday or Sunday, depending on the local television station. In addition to the 22 episodes of the first season, the series was renewed by Disney for a second season. All aired episodes were previously available online at Hulu and the official website for United States residents, but most of the episodes were removed from both just prior to the DVD release.

Filming of the second season started in July 2009. The first episode aired on November 7, 2009. The season consisted of 22 episodes based roughly on Terry Goodkind's second and third books, Stone of Tears and Blood of the Fold. Streamable episodes appeared on both the show's official website and Netflix.

Sam Raimi became interested in adapting The Sword of Truth novels after his business partner Joshua Donen encouraged him to read the books, and he in turn gave the books to Robert Tapert to read. Raimi considered adapting the first book into a movie or a five-part miniseries, but later settled on making a weekly television series after speaking to the books' author Terry Goodkind. A weekly television program would allow them to include most of the stories and important aspects of the series. Goodkind had resisted selling the rights of his books on multiple occasions before he met Raimi because he was not confident that other producers would maintain the integrity of his stories and characters. Raimi, who had produced Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess with Tapert and Ned Nalle, saw this as an opportunity to return to the first-run syndicated television business. However, the syndicated television business had diminished after the loss of crucial foreign markets and a gradual conversion of independent stations to UPN and WB programming that left little room for other syndicated dramas.

ABC Studios agreed to fund the project, making it its first venture into broadcast syndication, and greenlit the production for 22 episodes, after it was cleared for broadcast to stations representing 84% of the United States, with Tribune Company being the primary launch group. The show, which is heavily action-oriented and requires visual effects, was given a "network-sized" production budget of US$1.5 million per episode.

Originally named Wizard's First Rule (after the first book in The Sword of Truth series), the show was retitled to Legend of the Seeker at Goodkind's suggestion since the producers wanted to differentiate the show from the books, and it would have been too restrictive for them to only include plotlines from the first book as well as having the opportunity to cover the story within all the books in the series.