The Wheel of Time

Waited until last episode to review, if you have read the books this show will be painful to watch. Might be mildly enjoyable if you haven't read them but you'll probably be confused as they cram a lot of details in without fully explaining. They've taken the world and characters and then pretty much just made up a story. You get characters that never existed, storylines that never happened, completely made up dialogue. When you have 4.4 million words of quality source material you might try using some of it? Cinematography is top notch with some beautiful landscapes, but special effects look like early 2000's. Cast is okay, some strong performances and some weak ones. Unfortunately actor playing Matt had to leave the show, he was one of the highlights. Perrin is almost unwatchable.

The title says it all. I support diversity in the modern world, but not at the expense of story.

The two rivers is supposed to be sequestered from the world, and yet has the most diverse population possible

A man can be reborn a woman.... In a world where your gender decides which part of the MAGICAL SOURCE OF LIFE YOU CAN TOUCH

Every single male character is a vagabond, and every woman a hero l.

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.

The acting is actually very good but they can only do so much when the writing is aweful.

Some of the story changes are understandable, but most times the changes are nearly incomprehensible don't seem to serve a purpose. Additionally, there are a couple of moments that the writers make very poor story choices resulting in at least one instance of using the sin of "Deus Ex Machina" to escape their own story traps. This is lazy writing at its worst.

There are also fundamental changes to the main and side characters along with fundamental changes in relationships between people and organizations. This is another major writing sin and seriously jeopardizes eliminating or watering down both major and minor themes of the original story. Inexcusable.

There are other issues with poor site locations. A good example of this is picking a river next to a cliff to represent a part of a river delta for the largest river in the world. REALLY?

I gutted this season out and watched every episode from beginning to end so I could give the show an honest shot and not be one of tgose people that posts an opinion based on ignorance.

Season 1 did have a few moments that were at least decent, but not enough to make up for the rest of its considerable flaws and sins, therefore, I will NOT be watching season 2.

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.