The Wheel of Time (Season 1) - Amazon Prime - TV Series Review

 

Warning! Spoiler Alert!

 

I remember being introduced to Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time book series by my mother. She wasn’t a diehard fantasy fan by any means but kept an ear to the ground. The Redwall Series, The Belgariad, The Chronicles of Prydain, The Death Gate Cycle—I had devoured all of these and wasn’t afraid of a new epic fantasy.

How little did I know!

What would happen was I, like countless other Wheel of Time fans, would get sucked into the lives of Rand, Egwene, Matt, Nynaeve, and Perrin, and then ten more characters, and then ten more, until it was impossible to keep track of all the braid tugging without a fully illustrated map and several books of genealogies. However, I still remembered the magic of the first few books in the series—Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, still had a soft spot for the main characters sans Egwene, and it’s impossible not to admire Jordan’s creativity and richly layered world-building in the Aes Sedai, the Forsaken, and the Aiel.

The Wheel of Time is a classic high fantasy in which The Dark One and his enemy, the Dragon, face off in a cataclysmic struggle that ends up destroying the world and the male half of the One Power is tainted with madness. The Dark One is sealed at the Eye of the World until the Last Battle, at which the Dragon will come again and either defeat or join him—thus dooming the world. As such, only women can channel the One Power without succumbing to madness, and a powerful order of mages arises, called the Aes Sedai, who advise kingdoms and “gentle” men who can channel before they go mad. Moraine Sedai, of the Blue Ajah order, finds five young folk in the quiet mountain village of the Twin Rivers, who are each important to the Pattern. One of which is the Dragon Reborn.

So how did Amazon Prime do with The Eye of the World, a whopping 782 pages?

The Wheel of Time isn’t Game of Thrones (it is pretty funny seeing Roose Bolton show up as Rand’s dad, though). I love that it’s little known actors, but they have a long way to go to be capable of commanding the screen with the charisma and star power of Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke, and Lena Headey. This is more like Chronicles of Shannara, but where Wheel excels is the excellent world building foundation that Jordan has laid. The scenery is beautiful. Trollocs, the Fade, the Darkfriends—all well done. I love the actors playing the villainous Padan Fain, Logain, and  Eamon Valda—they all seem like they’re having a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the main cast. There isn’t enough time spent on building the core group’s bond to really care about them, and I can see how someone without the book background knowledge would fight through tedious episodes of walking and serious talks lacking chemistry. Nynaeve, for example, is one of my favorite characters in the book, but here she just is missing fire and presence. Perrin, too, is incredibly wooden. Ironically enough, Egwene, who irritated to me to know end in the books with her insufferableness—was fine in the television series. Rand, I’ll give it, is very Rand, but the actor has a ways to go to give the character depth. Mat didn’t have that roguish charm. They opted to give him a dark edge, but that missed the point that Mat was supposed to bring the levity, the fun. Rosamund Pike as Moraine was spot on perfect, though.

So there you have it—there is a lot of unevenness in the acting levels of the cast and the pacing of the series. There are moments that are really well done, like hiding from the Trollocs in the dark city of Shadar Logoth. This is a place with a fascinating history about a people who hid from the world so much that their isolation and hate finally ate them alive. I liked the White Tower and what we’ve seen of the Aes Sedai so far. However, it’s a tough sell when the supporting cast are more interesting. The season finale, especially, was disjoined and started trying to add too much with the arrival of the Seanchan.

You can tell there was a lot of attention paid to ensuring a diverse world, but the television series starts to make the same mistakes as the books by getting distracted with side characters. It doesn’t build up enough sympathy for Rand, who is the titular character and driving force in the series. An interesting direction to go, but honestly, as a fan of the book series, I identified with Rand as the hero thrust into this world of politics and raising an army the most. By trying to redo the angle and perspective of the story, the television series risks alienating the most sympathetic characters that kept readers coming back to the book series for even after it spanned well over ten books. I wanted to see what happened to the "wool-headed" Rand, Nynaeve, and Mat (and Demandred, because I am a big Forsaken fan).

The rest of the hundreds of characters who show up are just momentary weaves in the Pattern.

Season 2 of The Wheel of Time is in production.