Wheel of Time - Who's Watching?

[ronandannette]

Fantasy is far-and-away my favorite literary genre and this book series was a major thing for me. I read every book over 20 years - I used to joke about knowing those characters longer than I knew my DH. I dragged reading the last book out for almost a year because I just couldn't bear for it to end. With that as my background, I was insanely excited to anticipate the Prime Video series and have now binged all three of the existing episodes.

Anybody else? What do you think so far? It's such an epic undertaking and seems to be moving at a pace of about a book per episode. What's there is respectable enough but there's so, so much nuance and background missing that you just simply cannot glean from the screen adaptation without having read the books. If you've never read them and you're watching, is it interesting and engaging as a stand-alone tv show and are you enjoying it?

 

[limace]

Watching second one now. I have read the first few books-I love fantasy as well but these were not among my favorites. I thought the first was better than the book-characters had a little more depth.

 

[RamblingMad]

Watched the three episodes this weekend. It's okay so far. Typical fantasy. Nothing really stood out.

It kinda reminds me of Legend of the Seeker.

 

[amcnj]

I don’t have access to watch it yet, but hope to be able to eventually see it. Unfortunately it is often difficult for tv shows and movies to adequately capture the unique/different worlds found in science fiction and fantasy. I hope this one improves for you.

 

[slo]

I have no opinion due to never knowing about this book series, but I’m glad you posted this thread so I can try out a new book series, I looked it up, is the first book The Eye of the World? I saved it to my Kindle list on Amazon.

 

[amandaleigh2]

I watched the first episode and was not impressed. I have read the series twice and am currently reading it for the third time. Amazon obviously did not have a generous budget for this show. I was hoping it would be more like a Game of Thrones or Witcher fantasy series, but instead it's more like a syndicated tv fantasy series. I'll watch a couple more episodes to see if it gets any better, but not getting my hopes up!

Oh, and my husband, who has not read the books, had no idea what was going on in the first episode. I spent half the time explaining the story to him.

 

[sam_gordon]

I couldn't get through the first episode. I liked the Lord of the Rings and have occasionally read some other fantasy books, but just couldn't get through this. I've never read the books. And based on what PP said about her husband, it seems I'm not alone. If you need to know the story before seeing the show/movie, then the show/movie isn't very good.

 

[Micca]

I was hoping it would be more like a Game of Thrones or Witcher fantasy series, but instead it's more like a syndicated tv fantasy series.

I had a similar opinion, the budget issue is glaringly apparent. Not familiar with the books, so I'm going in cold. I'll try another Ep or two before I throw in the towel.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm watching it and enjoying it thus far. Never read the books so also unfamiliar with it.

Amazon probably was banking on Rosamund Pike being able to pull at least some people in.

It's filling the gap while waiting for Shadow and Bone season 2 to start at Netflix.

I never watched Game of Thrones and glad I didn't because of how poorly received the last season was. I did watch a few episodes of The Witcher though I've been meaning to get back into that.

Most of the time I watch these fantasy shows for the elements of it (the world they create, the characters they create, etc), fantasy (regardless of it being adapted from a book or not) tends to have a confusing factor to it at times because it's fantasy, it's a world that doesn't exist to us. I do think a balance between helping audiences understand the world is helpful without it feeling like it's being watered down due to that.

I'll continue watching it, at least with it being on a streaming service who is calling it their own I can watch at a slower pace without worrying about it up and leaving the streaming service too quickly.

 

[ronandannette]

I watched the first episode and was not impressed. I have read the series twice and am currently reading it for the third time. Amazon obviously did not have a generous budget for this show. I was hoping it would be more like a Game of Thrones or Witcher fantasy series, but instead it's more like a syndicated tv fantasy series. I'll watch a couple more episodes to see if it gets any better, but not getting my hopes up!

Oh, and my husband, who has not read the books, had no idea what was going on in the first episode. I spent half the time explaining the story to him.

I had a similar opinion, the budget issue is glaringly apparent. Not familiar with the books, so I'm going in cold. I'll try another Ep or two before I throw in the towel.

This is one thing I was wondering about - as is, does the show appeal to anybody who doesn’t know the story? The books are rich with detail, character development and background; all of which I was mentally filling in as I watched but without being able to do that, maybe it wouldn’t have made much sense? Honestly, it’s moving so fast I was shocked. The sequence of events of Moiraine finding the four in the Two Rivers and then them leaving with her was the entire first book. The show covered it in a single episode.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

One thing they had to deal with from Jordan's very lengthy and detailed writing of Wheel of Time, is they have so much more material to choose from when making a TV series. The entire WOT book series is 3/4/5 times longer than some of the other popular TV adaptations listed in the thread. How and what they pick and choose to adapt to TV will be key. So far, with the 3 episodes, we're giving it a "B". Looking forward to more episodes to see what they focus on. I guess we'll see how good it might get!

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Never read the books. I am a slow reader so it's hard for me to decide to get invested in a series that Is a dozen or so books long.

Maybe I will watch.

 

[kanerf]

I agree with some of the others. I like fantasy, so I will probably watch more of the episodes. After the first one, I am understandingly confused because I do not know the back stories, having never read the books. The probably need to have a blog or something that fills things in for those of us that did not read the books.

 

[adkkev]

FYI … total budget for this 8 episode series was slightly over $80 million, $10 million per episode. Game of Thrones started at $6-7 million per episode and grew to $15 million per episode by the last season (apparently those battle scenes cost big bucks for all the cgi involved).

 

[Chaitali]

This is one thing I was wondering about - as is, does the show appeal to anybody who doesn’t know the story? The books are rich with detail, character development and background; all of which I was mentally filling in as I watched but without being able to do that, maybe it wouldn’t have made much sense? Honestly, it’s moving so fast I was shocked. The sequence of events of Moiraine finding the four in the Two Rivers and then them leaving with her was the entire first book. The show covered it in a single episode.

The first book isn’t just them in the two rivers. The first book ends at the eye of the world, hence the name of the book. They leave the two rivers pretty early in the book. Shadar logoth is in the first book as well. The ferry, the tinkers, the wolves, all of that is in the first book.

I’ve enjoyed the show so far. There is a lot in the first book and I agree it will be hard to adapt and put all of that in one season. I’m interested to see what they can manage given they only have 5 more episodes. I’ve some friends watching who haven’t read the book and they seem to like it. There’s definitely stuff they don’t understand but they’re assuming that the show will provide the answers as the show moves along. Hopefully that’s the case.

 

[mom2rb]

DH read the books and watched all three episodes that were available on Friday. He wants to watch it again with me so we will do that this weekend.

 

[ronandannette]

Oh for Pete's sake, getting graphic with the romantic relationship between Moiraine and the Amrylin Seat (only intimated in the books)? Spare me. And naked chambermaids in the White Tower baths? I guess they decided they needed to sex things up for TV.

 

[Kirby]

Oh for Pete's sake, getting graphic with the romantic relationship between Moiraine and the Amrylin Seat (only intimated in the books)? Spare me. And naked chambermaids in the White Tower baths? I guess they decided they needed to sex things up for TV.

I guess I need to make sure the GK's aren't watching last night's episode with me.

I read the entire series several years ago when most of the books had been published. I lived and breathed WOT for a little over a year. I'm enjoying the series but I can see how those who have not read the books can be confused.

What I am glad about is that it's better than the Shanara series that came out on Netflix?. Don't remember who made it but I was very disappointed in it.

 

[limace]

Oh, the Shannara series was a train wreck!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

What I am glad about is that it's better than the Shanara series that came out on Netflix?. Don't remember who made it but I was very disappointed in it.

Shannara Chronicles was first MTV then moved to Spike for the 2nd season (Spike is now Paramount Network). I enjoyed the first season much more than the second but agree it was not the best made show.