Wheel of Time TV Show 7: And There Shall Be Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

[Lord Patrek]

4 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Found this from the New Statesman that absolutely trashes it, though the reviewer also doesn't seem to have watched past episode 1:

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv/2021/11/amazon-prime-fantasy-series-the-wheel-of-time-is-a-colossal-waste-of-time-and-money

 

Wow! That is indeed bad! 

I pay no attention to partisan reviews because they're worthless.

Most of the others are somewhat lukewarm, with some positive thrown into the mix. While true that it was the same for The Witcher, in my opinion such reviews were warranted for that show. It was still quite popular in the end, but I figure it has a lot to do with Henry Cavill. WoT doesn't have such a drawing card to attract newbies and mainstream audiences.

I'm concerned about how bad the dialogue is said to be. From the get-go I've been concerned that we haven't really seen the leads acting.

I'm going into this with the lowest possible expectations. And yet, after reading all those reviews I'm filled with even less confidence. Only 3 days to go. . .

[Myrddin]

There are only 6 episodes for season 1, right? He seemed uncertain in the review, which make me wonder how much of a stopping point the season halts at.

Googled my own question past the first Wikipedia hit and confirmed 8. Whew.

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, Myrddin said:

There are only 6 episodes for season 1, right? He seemed uncertain in the review, which make me wonder how much of a stopping point the season halts at.

8 episodes, I believe, but press  (and Dragonmount, it seems) got the first six.

 

[Werthead]

I forgot something major: the title sequence is genuinely spectacular. It shows threads being woven into a pattern depicting the Seven Ajahs of the Aes Sedai, which then segue into the logo.

Bafflingly, given the superb music elsewhere and the excellent theme tune Balfe created for His Dark Materials, they chose a fairly inert main theme, which was disappointing. But the title sequence (which only debuts in Episode 2) is amazing.

1 minute ago, Lord Patrek said:

Most of the others are somewhat lukewarm, with some positive thrown into the mix. While true that it was the same for The Witcher, in my opinion such reviews were warranted for that show. It was still quite popular in the end, but I figure it has a lot to do with Henry Cavill. WoT doesn't have such a drawing card to attract newbies and mainstream audiences.

The overwhelming majority of the reviews from actual publications so far are positive to very positive. There's only a couple of negative reviews, and The New Statesman is typically not keen on genre stuff (or populist stuff). Even the middling reviews mostly trend positive. It's some kind of Reeds Richards-style stretch to say the reviews are "mostly lukewarm".

Quote

There are only 6 episodes for season 1, right? He seemed uncertain in the review, which make me wonder how much of a stopping point the season halts at.

Eight. They only gave out six for review (to professional publications; fan sites and bloggers got the three that drop for everyone on Friday). They finished filming six before COVID, so have had those in the can for ages; they only finished the last two in May and have been tweaking post on them ever since, presumably why they were not included. Although, intriguingly, we still don't have the episode titles for the last two.

[Wouter]

7 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Right. This season seems to be right about there.

That was always a likelihood, I suppose, with Eye of the World being so much more an LotR like story.

Found this from the New Statesman that absolutely trashes it, though the reviewer also doesn't seem to have watched past episode 1:

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv/2021/11/amazon-prime-fantasy-series-the-wheel-of-time-is-a-colossal-waste-of-time-and-money

 

The reviewer simply seems to hate the subject matter, IMO not a valid review.

5 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

The Eye of the World meandered a lot, but the book helped you connect to Rand, at least, in the process. I think condensing the book and mostly focussing on the action hurts that part a lot.

The best part of The Eye of the World, for me, was the journey of Rand (with Matt and also Thom at first) to Caemlyn. It really invited the reader to bond with Rand, at least. Seems like we get a very condensed form of that in the show.

A bit apprehensive over the Perrin thing, though. And while it is nice to hear that Barney Harris does a good job as Matt, there's the actor change looming over that.
 

Two more days!

Edit: so according to the Dragonmount review, no mention of saidin or saidar in the first six episodes. Only the 'one power'. Whether this will be expanded upon later or not, it does tie in with the choice to present Egwene as a candidate to be dragon reborn.

[David Selig]

 The New Statesman review is a complete mess, I am at a loss how anyone can take it seriously. It starts with the absurd take that it's ridiculous for a show that lacks originality to have a high budget and goes downhill from there. The reviewer clearly doesn't like fantasy and has an axe to grind against Jeff Bezos, not surprising considering what magazine she works for. 

[Lord Patrek]

I agree about The New Statesman. But I tend to agree with Rolling Stone on stuff. And The Independent and the midling reviews Wert posted share a number of shortcomings that seem to be quite flagrant.

If acting and character development aren't up to par, especially early on, it might be hard to reel in anyone but actual WoT and fantasy fans. Some of those reviews state that it's hard for newbies to get into it. And given its budget, WoT needs to attract mainstream audiences to be considered a commercial success and go on a long run.

[IFR]

1 hour ago, Lord Patrek said:

If acting and character development aren't up to par, especially early on, it might be hard to reel in anyone but actual WoT and fantasy fans. Some of those reviews state that it's hard for newbies to get into it. And given its budget, WoT needs to attract mainstream audiences to be considered a commercial success and go on a long run.

One of my gripes with shows that have succeeded Game of Thrones is that they all seem to have learned the wrong lesson. They seem to think if you throw enough money at the show and have pretty enough special effects, you'll have a hit.

Didn't the first season of GoT cost 45 million? With inflation that's about 55 million today. The early seasons of GoT went vary sparse on spectacle, and instead spent the time on human drama.

There are many ways to reduce the budget for Wheel of Time. It doesn't need to be an expensive series, and honestly special effects is one of the most shallow contributors to a show. Special effects should be used intelligently, not as something with which to bludgeon the audience. 

I wish this show had gone with 10 episodes for this season, and instead of having some elaborate Winternight raid, used that money to have more scenes, and spend more time developing the characters. Maybe spend that money poaching writers from Vince Gilligan's staff.

But things are as they are, so I suppose we'll just have to see how this goes.

[fionwe1987]

While it's true WoT could have redistributed it's budget to more episodes and less spectacle, it's also true that the more resonant character moments come later, in the series, once the characters have gone past their early phase and accepted, somewhat, that they're not going to remain country bumpkins.

Added to which, I feel the need to keep the Dragon Reborn a mystery prevents them from giving Rand his most relatable arc in the first book: his struggle with the realization that he's adopted. And I'm imagining it means a lessening of the tension with Egwene, who in the books isn't leaving the village because she's potentially the Dragon Reborn, but because she wants to see the world, and later, become Aes Sedai. 

The show is in a bit of a catch 22, though. If they didn't do the big action set pieces enough, that would have hurt the show, too.

[IFR]

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

The show is in a bit of a catch 22, though. If they didn't do the big action set pieces enough, that would have hurt the show, too.

I don't see that it would. Sharp dialog and well scripted drama is what will often draw an audience. Game of Thrones didn't have its spectacle action sequence until the end of season 2, and after that not until the end of season 4. It was all character drama.

Succession is currently a popular series, and it's not popular because of sweet battle scenes every episode. It's popular, again, because of the good writing and acting.

As far as I'm concerned, that's what it all boils down to, regardless of genre.

As for the mystery of the Dragon Reborn’s identity, it's honestly perplexing to me why the writers thought this is a good approach. I doubt this will be a shocking revelation to even the most inattentive viewer, and the changes required for this "mystery" have already been discussed. But, regardless, you could have plenty of character moments without endangering that mystery.

My favorite parts of the book were the Two Rivers group and their various little interactions in the Two Rivers and Baerlon, as well as Rand and Mat traveling to Caemlyn and their misadventures, and most of all the interactions of the group as they traveled the ways. The quiet moments. That has no real bearing on Rand's identity, it's simply fleshing out these characters so we can fully appreciate their changes later on.

It sounds like the show rushes so quickly through the story that we don't get many of these character moments. Which is a shame. I'd choose good writing and fully realized characters over flashy battles any day. And I don't think I'm alone, because that was the focus of many of the more popular and critically acclaimed series.

[Ran]

You know, been a very long time since I've read Eye of the World, but Linda has been re-reading them all... and she pointed out something I didn't remember, that the Winternight attack wasn't actually shown by Jordan, Rand just arrives after the fact and is told what happened. The way people online keep asking how they did Winternight made me think that it was something that was directly on the page.

I do think that what @IFR says, and Alan Sepinwall's review concurs, is that the show seems to have decided that spectacle is key despite that not being what made Game of Thrones so enjoyable early on. It sounds from commentary that there are at least two big set pieces, perhaps three, in an 8 episode season -- that's certainly pretty epic... but are they overdoing it and undercutting other important narrative aspects?

Will be interesting to see where things stand once all the reviews are in.

[BigFatCoward]

I have to say this looks dreadful. The dialogue sounds like it was written by a 14 year old (never read the books). 

[Which Tyler]

3 hours ago, IFR said:

I don't see that it would. Sharp dialog and well scripted drama is what will often draw an audience. Game of Thrones didn't have its spectacle action sequence until the end of season 2, and after that not until the end of season 4. It was all character drama.

Succession is currently a popular series, and it's not popular because of sweet battle scenes every episode. It's popular, again, because of the good writing and acting.

As far as I'm concerned, that's what it all boils down to, regardless of genre.

As for the mystery of the Dragon Reborn’s identity, it's honestly perplexing to me why the writers thought this is a good approach. I doubt this will be a shocking revelation to even the most inattentive viewer, and the changes required for this "mystery" have already been discussed. But, regardless, you could have plenty of character moments without endangering that mystery.

My favorite parts of the book were the Two Rivers group and their various little interactions in the Two Rivers and Baerlon, as well as Rand and Mat traveling to Caemlyn and their misadventures, and most of all the interactions of the group as they traveled the ways. The quiet moments. That has no real bearing on Rand's identity, it's simply fleshing out these characters so we can fully appreciate their changes later on.

It sounds like the show rushes so quickly through the story that we don't get many of these character moments. Which is a shame. I'd choose good writing and fully realized characters over flashy battles any day. And I don't think I'm alone, because that was the focus of many of the more popular and critically acclaimed series.

Personally, I agree with everything you're saying here.
Unfortunately, we live in a world of decreasing attention spans and increasing importance of spectacle (see MCU).

I suspect that more spectacle, faster plotting and less character development is what the target demographic want - which isn't necessarily the same target as Succession, or some of us older readers.

[Corvinus85]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

You know, been a very long time since I've read Eye of the World, but Linda has been re-reading them all... and she pointed out something I didn't remember, that the Winternight attack wasn't actually shown by Jordan, Rand just arrives after the fact and is told what happened. The way people online keep asking how they did Winternight made me think that it was something that was directly on the page.

To be fair, the show decided to give an equal PoV to all the other characters, so it makes sense to see the Winternight attack. I think the biggest change that we'll see is deaths. There may be loads of deaths. In the book, I'm pretty sure none of the villagers actually died thanks to Moiraine.

[fionwe1987]

7 hours ago, IFR said:

I don't see that it would. Sharp dialog and well scripted drama is what will often draw an audience. Game of Thrones didn't have its spectacle action sequence until the end of season 2, and after that not until the end of season 4. It was all character drama.

Succession is currently a popular series, and it's not popular because of sweet battle scenes every episode. It's popular, again, because of the good writing and acting.

As far as I'm concerned, that's what it all boils down to, regardless of genre.

As for the mystery of the Dragon Reborn’s identity, it's honestly perplexing to me why the writers thought this is a good approach. I doubt this will be a shocking revelation to even the most inattentive viewer, and the changes required for this "mystery" have already been discussed. But, regardless, you could have plenty of character moments without endangering that mystery.

My favorite parts of the book were the Two Rivers group and their various little interactions in the Two Rivers and Baerlon, as well as Rand and Mat traveling to Caemlyn and their misadventures, and most of all the interactions of the group as they traveled the ways. The quiet moments. That has no real bearing on Rand's identity, it's simply fleshing out these characters so we can fully appreciate their changes later on.

It sounds like the show rushes so quickly through the story that we don't get many of these character moments. Which is a shame. I'd choose good writing and fully realized characters over flashy battles any day. And I don't think I'm alone, because that was the focus of many of the more popular and critically acclaimed series.

I don't disagree with you in terms of my taste. But I don't think they're going for critical acclaim as much as they're going for a massive audience. And by the time GoT had a massive audience, it did have a ton of spectacle, and I don't think most of the world thinks "sharp dialog and quiet character moments" when they think "next Game of Thrones".

GoT was able to use the narrative of the books and build critic goodwill based on those things, which then gave them the budget to do big spectacle. But it's massive audiences coincided with the big spectacle seasons, no? I may be wrong, but I think a lot of people went back and watched the earlier seasons only after 2-3 seasons in, when stuff like the Red Wedding so permeated the cultural zeitgeist that everyone felt they had to be in on it. 

And while I absolutely think another show can do just that, build slow and go big later, and gain critical acclaim, I don't know that audiences parse their Game of Thrones experiences the same way. I keep getting asked if WoT has big battles and spectacle like GoT did, when I recommend it to non-fantasy fans.

With regard to Winternight, it's worth noting that a LOT of battles are offscreen, with RJ, or only depicted in the narrow focus of the POV character. I think that works great, in books, but it's hard to replicate well on screen though I do hope they try. 

[Gigei]

Thanks for the review Werthead! I'll take our own Werthead's review over the others which I'm not gonna read because of spoilers. I don't I need the advance reviews since there's absolutely no way I wouldn't watch this, hahaha. I'm 100% in, and I'll make up my own mind whether I like it or not.

[David Selig]

GoT's first season was released 10 years ago. Since then the expectations of the viewing public for the level of spectacle and the scale of the action scenes in high budget fantasy shows have become considerably higher. After Blackwater, Hardhome, Battle of the Bastards, etc., tricks like "The PoV character got hit on the head and missed the battle" won't cut it for most viewers and critics. Plus I am sure D&D would have included one big action set piece in the first season if they had a budget for it too and this would have only helped the popularity of the show.

And as the whole history of Hollywood shows, top class spectacle beats sharp dialog and well scripted drama for popular appeal every time, and by a huge margin too. MCU movies' dialogue is downright painful half the time and the character development in these movies couldn't be any more cliched and tedious, but they are breaking box office records every year. And they aren't nearly the worst offender when it comes to bad writing among the mega blockbusters.

But I don't see why spending big money on action set pieces precludes any show from having good character development or dialogue. More episodes rarely means "better writing".

[Ran]

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But I don't see why spending big money on action set pieces precludes any show from having good character development or dialogue. More episodes rarely means "better writing".

Time developing character and story is traded away every time you decide to bring everything to a halt for a lengthy spectacle sequence. It takes a lot of filming time to make these scenes happen, a lot of planning, and if you decide that they are a key part of your show's appeal then your show gets increasingly built around getting to those sequences.

That the show has invented outright some sort of spectacular ambush scene does concern me if it's a sign of what they think the audience will care about most.

[Lord Patrek]

As I mentioned before, I have very little faith in Judkins and his team of writers. The more I read reviews, good or bad, the more I'm afraid that WoT will be like The Dark Tower movie. Something that is quite different from the source material.

[fionwe1987]

33 minutes ago, Ran said:

That the show has invented outright some sort of spectacular ambush scene does concern me if it's a sign of what they think the audience will care about most.

Wait, what ambush scene? With Logain?