The Wheel of Time

I've been struggling to put into words exactly what it is that makes me dislike this tv show, the best I can do is say that Rafe Judkins has removed, changed and added so much that the resemblance to this book series is at best passing. What he has created from a classic fantasy story is a Frankenstein's monster with a rushed story that makes little sense in a world robbed of any character or depth. I watch because I love the book series, and seeing them mangle one of my favourite series is like witnessing a car crash happen in slow motion, I don't want to watch but I can't bring myself to look away.

I could go into detail, but nobody wants that so I'll save you that torment. The book readers know what the changes are, and the tv show enjoyers don't really care. Each to their own, Keeping Up with the Kardashians has been on television for 20 years so it's not like the bar is incredibly high. The crux of my criticism of the Wheel of Time steaming series is this; Rafe Judkins believes himself a better storyteller than Robert Jordan, that is the only way to explain how and why he made the changes that he did. That is the only way to explain it. There are moments that could have been book accurate, but weren't. For what reason? Only Rafe knows.

I would be lying if I said there are no moments in The Wheel of Time that I didn't enjoy. A few brief moments of action and some characters standout over others. Some of the sets look great and others have CGI from 2003.

As in many other reviews I wrote for individual episodes the biggest culprit affecting WOT is the writing. Conversations are rarely engaging, and most characters are poorly developed, providing nobody to emotionally attach to. The second problem for me is the acting and casting. Rosamund Pike as Moiraine, Zoe Robins as Nynaeve, Daniel Henney as Lan and Kate Fleetwood as Liandrin are all great in their roles. Everyone else including Rand are boring beyond belief. Rand and Egwene have no chemistry and it's hard to watch one of the worst love triangle plot threads unfold with Perrin. Perrin has potential as a character, but his expression is the same throughout the whole season, the same goes for boring Rand. Watching Rand during the finale made me want to poor bleach on my eyes. Matt, what happened to Matt...who knows?

For the budget the WOT's marketing bragged about little talent is displayed from the writers and a majority of the actors. Some of the CGI is distractingly awful for a big budget show. Another problem is the shows pacing. Episodes can drag on one after the other with the last thirty minutes of episode four being the only highlight. The direction of the story is all over the place and I was bored throughout most of the season.

If you're desperate to watch something fantasy related don't let anyone's opinion prevent you from giving WOT a try. Some people do seem to be enjoying it. For me, I loathed WOT for the majority of the show's duration. Potential is lurking on the horizon for WOT. Maybe use some of that Amazon money to hire better writers and directors?

I wanted to like the show given how much I enjoyed the books, but there are so many changes it's like pulling threads out of the pattern, eventually it's going to unravel. I watch this with my wife and she has a hard time following what's going on as someone who hasn't read the books. It's a shame a quality production house like HBO didn't pick this up. The books are a treasure but you really need some talent if you're going to adapt to screen.

With great source material to work from this should have been an easy pitch and catch for the showrunners but they have elected to follow the overarching plot without actually following any of the character arcs that make it up.

The sets are painfully reused, CGI low quality for 2021 and the best actor left the show after episode 6. The best parts of the show are the characters with less screen time, especially Dana, Padan Fain, Ishmael and Logain.

There is almost no setup to the Dragon at all and even less to the Dark One. This is the core struggle at the heart of the Wheel of Time and lost completely to the rapid pace of attempting to get through the 'quest' portion of the Wheel of Time as quickly as possible.

After 8 episodes I find myself with very little left to argue against those who see the show as misandrist in nature. Every single male character is deficient in some way whilst women are elevated in terms of power and competence. Given the more equal world we live in than when EotW was penned, along with the fact that the source material has plenty of empowered female characters, it's difficult to understand why.

There are a lot of people reviewing this series that say they haven't read the books. That's probably a good thing for them, as it seems that the writers of the series haven't read the books either. Just in the first couple of episodes, I found myself saying, "This didn't happen in the books!" Characters are mis-represented, given different backgrounds, follow story lines completely out of sync with the books, etc. This might make sense if they were making a 3 hour movie, or even trying to fit the massive books into a short mini-series, but to completely re-write an otherwise fantastic story with just enough similarities to produce a true series and call it by the same name is ridiculous.

Some of the changes were likely to "modernize" a story that was written only 30 years, and to appeal to a broader fan base, but those were trivial changes - sex between characters and a bit of a nod to the LGBTQ community, with no hint of either in the books, for example. Other changes were shocking in their complete disregard for the story the show is based on.

The scenery is well done, and the acting has been fine so far, if not a little dull at times. The action scenes have been done quite well for a small-screen production. It is honestly hard though to get past the substantial changes to the storyline itself. I plan to continue watching - now that I've seen the first season, I feel like I need to see where the de-railed train ends up. Will it survive the changes enough to hold any similarities to the ongoing story, or will it crash and burn and go up in a fiery pile of ashes?