Reviews Series / The Wheel Of Time 2021

A terrible show, and a worse adaptation.

The Wheel of Time is one of the worst types of adaptation, the kind where the makers are clearly using someone else's world and characters to try to tell their own story, but don't have anywhere near the skill to create something as good. Eight episodes would have been plenty to faithfully adapt the first book with some cuts to filler and travel times, but the first season instead balloons itself with filler of its own, while changing everything about the books that was actually good.

The first season completely sidelines and undermines all of the male characters: they're made far weaker (Tam, Lan), have all of their best moments given to other characters (Rand), turned into selfish failures instead of heroes (Lews Therin), or even treated like borderline villains (Mat and his father). The casting was hit-or-miss (mostly misses), with every character either looking or acting so differently from their book selves that I couldn't even pretend that they were the same people. The fundamental lore was rewritten, and in the process, made into something less. It isn't just a matter of loyalty to the source material, however: I had mixed feelings about the books due to their extreme length/detail and would have welcomed an Adaptation Distillation, but this show would thoroughly fail even if it was its own original property.

The show started off as mediocre in its first few episodes, with no huge problems, but also nothing to set it above the painfully average. As it went on, however, the problems mounted: the terribly written dialogue, many instances of weak acting, pointless subplots that wasted time, a pitiful attempt at a love triangle, a tiresome number of death fake-outs, Rand having little motivation or character beyond his obsessively submissive relationship with Egwene, and above all else, lackluster characterization. I said the Eight Deadly Words by episode five, and wouldn't have even finished the first season if it hadn't been based on a book I'd read, as the final episodes rapidly descended into the lowest tiers of quality.

All in all, a complete failure as both an adaptation and a story. I'd consider it a generous ranking to give it a 3/10 just as a show, and as an adaptation, it thoroughly rejects both the structure and the spirit of the books to the point where only In Name Only adaptations are less faithful. I have no interest whatsoever in watching the second season, and advise both readers of the books and new potential viewers not to even bother.