TL;DR Recommend to people who haven't read the books, and are looking to escape into a mediocre young adult fantasy series.
***
The mark of a good book-to-screen adaptation is that it appeals to either book fans or people new to the series. The mark of a great book-to-screen adaptation is that it has something compelling for both audiences. Rafe Judkins "Wheel of Time" accomplished neither.
The first season starts out rough around the edges, has a few brilliant scenes in the middle episodes, and loses its way completely at the end of season one. If you're new to Wheel of Time, it will probably feel like a generic action fantasy with a lot of extremely petty teen drama, and an inconsistent magic system with no rules that allows characters to return from the dead. It's not a categorically bad show all around, especially if the source material is ignored, but there's little to distinguish it from the other similar action fantasy fare.
For people who read the books, loved the diverse world, deftly-written political intrigue that inspired A Song of Ice and Fire, complex characters, mature, socially-conscious messages of humanism and solidarity in hard times, and consistent magic system- prepare for disappointment.
I can't imagine the show will age well due to sacrificing character growth and the majority of the plot for empty virtue signaling shoved through the myopic lens of the current zeitgeist. The world of The Wheel of Time was already full of diverse cultures, representations of all kinds of people, and unlike the show, it wasn't tokenizing or pandering at all. The book series has 2,500+ diverse, named characters to choose from. The book's story of the secluded and xenophobic Two Rivers village led to an inspiring message of hope and tolerance when the village takes in refugees, for example. In the show, the Two Rivers and every other location we've seen has shoe-horned diversity from the start, so I guess we can forget seeing the story of how the people of this world grow to tolerate one another and fight together.
If you expect either a faithful retelling or even a quality adaptation with its own identity, look to the next turning of the wheel. You won't find it here.
***
The initial review was for the first three episodes, as they air I'll add an update for each episode.
-Episodes #1-3
I didn't expect a perfectly faithful representation of the books, and came into this with very low expectations in that regard. I expected the book series' sprawling plot to be stretched over the basic bones of the story, and to stick to the main cast, cutting out a lot of the side plots and simplifying some of the main plot.
Three episodes in, Wheel of Time is mediocre. A mature detailed and original story has been lowered to generic action fantasy, and as of now, there's nothing to make it stand on its own apart from the source material.
The introductions to the setting and culture of the Two Rivers region and Emond's Field village were rushed. Depictions of the major events of the world were rushed. The political intrigue missed by a mile. The main characters are only vaguely recognizable from the source material, apart from their names, and have little chemistry for people who are supposed to be cradle-to-grave best friends.
The CGI isn't great, but it's not terrible. The intro is well done. The soundtrack doesn't stand out in any way. Some of the costumes are excellent and others are awful. A lot of the subtle visual symbolism and details are well done, but if you haven't read the books and already know what to look for, you'll probably miss most of it.
-Episode #4: The acting, character chemistry, and pacing all improve a lot in the fourth episode. Hopefully this is a sign of better things to come. I'm concerned that they're portraying the channeling (magic system) in an inconsistent and overpowered way that may significantly derail the plot. This episode was a huge departure from the books, but despite its flaws a marked improvement from the three pilot episodes.
-Episode #5: The sudden month-long time-skip is jarring, and forced a major restructuring of the plot as written in the books. Most of this episode focused on a character that wasn't in the book, and didn't move the plot forward at all. I understand that some changes must be made to adapt a novel series to television, but never understand the decision to cut so much relevant plot material for new scenes and characters that don't add anything significant to the story. Despite those issues, this episode continued to improve in terms of character chemistry. I'm still undecided whether to accept significant departures from the books like the Aes Sedai sobbing and beating their breasts with emotion. Even in extremis, the Aes Sedai serenity is one of their defining characteristics.
On the plus side: Loial is appropriately cast. The show runners really missed an opportunity by not having Loial voice the narrator.
Episode #6: Another episode that failed to move the plot forward. I left this episode feeling frustrated that it is not only going far afield if the source material, but I can't imagine how hollow this world, and abstruse plot would feel to someone who never read the books.
Most of the character development that happened in this part of the books was cut completely, or replaced with some ham-fisted attempts to advance character growth with a single event. It also looks like they're skipping over the entire searching mission to find out what power threatens the world, and how to confront it. Instead a character has a dream that reveals everything, so we can skip the interesting parts and presumably jump straight into the action.
One of the main character actors quit during this episode and they had his character inexplicably wander off and vanish for the rest of the season.
-Episode #7: The opening scene was very well done. It was one of the best choreographed fight scenes I've seen in fantasy film or TV. That one scene did justice to and even expanded on the source material.
Unfortunately anything praise-worthy ended there.
So much time is wasted on events that don't move the story forward, while character growth and plot are limited to rushed exposition. I'm beginning to lose hope that this will improve. The original story is really cut to bare bones, mangled, and it doesn't distinguish itself as an adaptation.
-Episode 8: This was an abysmal season finale. Almost the entire episode was spent focused on a battle that happens "off-screen" in the books as a set-up for the heroic feat of the main character. Only the main character doesn't do it. As it was done in the show, the battle scene was poorly set-up, bordering on nonsensical. The battle done this way doesn't move the story forward, or tell us anything we didn't know about the world, and killed off some of the main and supporting characters who were not even at that battle in the books.
The main action scene in the first book's finale, an introduction to The Forsaken- the primary antagonists of Wheel of Time who the show has not even made mention of- the powerful human servants of The Dark One, was replaced with a dream sequence.
Once again the magic system is portrayed in an inconsistent way, so overpowered in some instances, and underpowered in others.
The episode ends with several of the main characters maimed/dead/lost their power, no explanation of what happened to the central main character at the end- he just wanders off, leaving his injured friend behind.
Then there was the last-minute tease of some of the next season's antagonists with an overpowered and pointless display of magic, shown with absolutely no context. If I hadn't read the books I'd have no clue at all what was supposed to be happening in this episode.
As much as I love this IP's source material, I doubt I'll bother to watch the next season. I really wanted to love this show, but I don't think it's salvageable.
Side note: If you're not enjoying the show or if you are and want more Wheel of Time right away, check out Wheel of Time audiobook co-narrated by Kate Reading. The narrators voice act all the characters and really bring the story to life.
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