Wheel of Time: Episodes 1-4
So, the long-awaited Wheel of Time television adaptation is finally here!
I’ve been sort of… dreading? this series since I heard it was coming. A little backstory… I never watched even a single clip of Game of Thrones. One, I knew from what other people were saying that I wouldn’t appreciate the sexual content, and Two, I’d never read any of the books so I kinda didn’t care.
But when it comes to The Wheel of Time… well… I’ve read those books. All of them. I started reading them in high school and continued all through college and on until they were all available. My dad would often buy me the newest book in hardcover, which looks super cool on my bookshelves. And while there are things in the books I’m not a huge fan of… it’s still a series that I like a lot. It’s still a series that meant a lot to me as I kind of “grew up” with it through high school and college.
I soon caught up with all the series to the point where I had to wait for the next book.
I got to Winter’s Heart in college and waited breathlessly to find out what happened next…. only to be severely disappointed three years later to find out that Crossroads of Twilight did not actually move the story any further forward, but just told the same events that had been in Winter’s Heart from all the other characters’ perspectives!
I waited another year… and got…. a prequel.
A good prequel, but still….
It wasn’t until ANOTHER year had passed that we finally got to find out what happened next in a story that left us hanging off the edge of a cliff for five years!
But I stuck with it, in spite of all of that. And I absolutely loved the way it all wrapped up.
So… yes. I’m going to want to watch this show. But I’ve been a little worried that they’re going to “game of thrones” it and make it all about nudity and sex. Which I won’t watch. Or that they will try to cram a 2020-style agenda into it that doesn’t fit with the author’s original story and ruins the entire thing. That would be disappointing.
I will watch until one or the other of those two things happens. (note my optimism)
And I thought it might be fun to try to keep a running review going here on the blog as long as I’m willing to watch the show. And then I can also give you a head’s up if it takes a turn for the severely disappointing.
So let’s get started then, shall we?
Right off the bat, this is NOT a show to watch with your kids. It’s not family-friendly… but if we’re being totally honest… the entire book series after book 3 is not family-friendly, either. So I am going into this knowing they are going to make PG-13, and possibly R, rated choices, which is why I’m watching with caution and totally willing to turn it off and give up on it in the future.
Episode 1
In this episode, we are introduced to the simple folk of the Two Rivers.
In quick succession, we meet Egwene, Nynaeve, Rand al’Thor, Mat Cauthon, and Perrin Aybarra.
And right away, something is a little “off.” Perrin is married.
Which is not a thing in the book.
So… right off the bat, they’ve made me a little mad. But I tried to look over it… and Derek pointed out that the wife would probably end up dead in fairly short order, since she’s not in the book.
In this episode, we also meet Moiraine and a’Lan Mandragoran. And I have zero complaints. They are searching for the Dragon Reborn (did I mention that reincarnation is kind of a big thing in this world?)
And then there’s the moment when Lan hops into the large bathtub with Moiraine in the inn. That was weird and unnecessary. There is nothing sexual about the scene, they just have a conversation and then the show moves on. But I didn’t need to see Lan’s bare backside, thank you very much. Also, there was never anything like that between them. So it was a strange choice.
Also, Rand and Egwene are sleeping together, which is not in the books. We don’t see anything on screen, thankfully, but their post-bedroom chat makes it pretty obvious that’s what happened. At this point, Egwene shares that Nynaeve has asked Egwene to become her apprentice, which apparently means she can’t get married… because: reasons that are unclear and not in the book.
Trollocs invade the village during a big feast celebration… that wasn’t a very impressive feast celebration… also, why wasn’t the village green GREEN? You had one job…
Ok. I’m actually trying NOT to be super nitpicky here.
The battle scenes were pretty epic, and Moiraine channeling and the special effects around her using the One Power have been very well done.
The trollocs are definitely terrifying, and I appreciate that they don’t just look like low-budget orcs from LOTR, they are definitely their own thing, and look like I would have expected from the descriptions in the books.
Again with Perrin… a choice was made that helps “sell” his desire to be careful at all times. I don’t know what I think of it, yet. I’m on the fence. Logically… it’s not totally out there. I just… hmmm. Yeah. If anyone else watches the first episode and wants to chat about that, I’m interested to see what other people thought.
Of course, it probably isn’t fair of me to watch WoT right after an epic rewatch of The Lord of the Rings. I mean, how is it supposed to measure up? Like… at all?
Moving on.
Episode 2
Our little group travels with Moiraine and Lan. We meet the Whitecloaks. Moiraine is struggling with the injury she received during the battle in Two Rivers. We get some background on Manatheren (ancient name of The Two Rivers) from Moiriane as they ride along. And we venture into Shadar Logoth.
Mat picks up a dagger in Shadar Logoth (because: shiny thing and he’s a thief in this version of himself).
Shadar Logoth itself sort of comes alive and tries to eat everyone, so they all dash off in opposite directions and get separated. This is what happens in the books, but so little time was spent on Shadar Logoth that it doesn’t really feel very weighty. The look of the place was epic, and I liked the way they showed the shadowy creepy evilness of it coming alive, but still… no Morgoth, no trollocs being driven into the city against their will…
Lan carries a near-death Moiraine from Shadar Logoth and is trying to help her when suddenly a knife is at his throat and Nynaeve (who SPOILER: did NOT get killed by the trolloc who dragged her off by her hair in episode 1) demands he tell her where her friends are.
Derek and I were both a little nervous about what the show was going to do with this moment. Because if Lan can be snuck up on and threatened by Nynaeve, then he’s not really Lan.
Image credit: found in google search
Episode 3
We get a flash-back to see how Nynaeve happened to not get killed by the trolloc who dragged her away. I don’t think she needed the “warrior woman” scene, but I appreciate that her main strengths appear to be stealth and quick thinking, and not some sort of ridiculous superhuman strength or kung-fu kicking power like most women seem to have in movies and shows these days.
Thankfully, it seems that Lan is completely unfazed by Nynaeve’s sudden arrival, not because she was able to sneak up on him, but because she is no threat to him. While Nynaeve does surprise Lan by actually trying to stab him, she is no match for his epic warrior-ness and she ends up tied to a tree where she can’t hurt anybody. (Nynaeve has never been my favorite, and I might have been a little gleeful about this moment).
Lan bargains with Nynaeve to help him heal Moiraine. At which point we see some very bad acting or directing (not sure who the blame should go to). Nynaeve’s remedy will apparently hurt rather a lot, and she warns Lan of this, knowing that he and Moiraine share an Aes Sedai/Warder bond and can feel what each other feels. Then she applies the remedy to a feverish and nearly unconscious Moiraine and…. nobody even blinks.
And Nynaeve in no way reacts to their lack of reaction.
So why was the line even there?
I don’t know. But it seems to me, that if you are going to have the line of dialogue, then either you need the pain to be evident on SOMEBODY’S face, OR you need the healer to comment on the fact that neither of the people who were supposed to feel it apparently did.
shrug
Mat and Rand meet Thom Merrilin… who… plays guitar?
I’m not sure how I feel about that choice.
But Thom himself does not disappoint in any way. His patches are on the inside of his cloak, and he is depicted as far more weather-worn and grim than the cheerful-seeming gleeman of the books… but then, Thom was always more than he seemed, and I’m a fan of the way he’s being portrayed so far.
Mat struggles with his ever-growing broodiness, giving Batman a run for his money. Also, we have to be reminded that he is a thief. Also, that his parents are worthless. I’m still not happy about what they’ve done to Mat. Not happy, Bob.
Rand does all the work. Then almost gets his head taken off for his troubles by a darkfriend… who Thom saves him from. The boys take off into the night with Thom as their guide and protector.
Perrin and Egwene are also traveling, making their way toward the White Tower where they hope to be reunited with their friends. Wolves chase them, but not very convincingly.
They meet the Tuatha’an (traveling tinkers) and are taken in and cared for and invited to travel along with them.
Episode 4
Nynaeve, Lan, and Moiraine catch up with a group of Aes Sedai who Heal Moiraine. Then they inform her that they have taken prisoner a man claiming to be the Dragon Reborn. This is, of course, Logain.
Logain is… intriguing. We get to see some of his backstory. They are doing a good job at showing the madness that is associated with sai’din, while also showing that Logain is not wholly evil. He struggles with the madness, but he truly wants to do what is best for the world. And he truly believes he is the Dragon Reborn.
We get some neat insights into the workings of sai’dar (women’s power) and sai’din (men’s power) in this episode. And Lan sets the record straight about sai’din when talking to Nynaeve. It is not that men are inherently dirty and ruin the One Power when they touch it (as Liandrin suggested in an earlier episode flash-sideways moment when they captured Logain) but rather that the Dark One touched and tainted sai’din so that it cannot be handled safely without driving the user insane.
We also get some glimpses into the order of the Aes Sedai, including what some of the different factions focus on, and we also get a pretty obvious hint that not all Aes Sedai/Warder bonds are chaste as a group of warders and their Aes Sedai run off giggling towards her tent. I guess that could have been worse?
Overall Thoughts
There are a few minor spoilers in this section - reader beware
First of all, I’d like to take a moment to say that I may not be able to be completely fair to this show. I am watching it on the heels of an epic marathon re-watch of The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit trilogies.
And while this show is “big budget”… it’s nothing compared to the epic awesomeness of LOTR/The Hobbit.
I was talking with my husband and I asked him, “Okay, I know this show supposedly cost a lot. So why does it feel so ‘low-budget’?”
So, my engineering husband and I did some figuring.
While I don’t know exact figures, it is guessed that this show cost somewhere around 10 million dollars an episode. And while that seems like a lot, if we compare it to the Lord of the Rings, we find an immediate difference in cost and quality if we think about how much money is spent for the time we get. At approximately 10 million dollars an episode, the Wheel of Time show has about $222,000 invested in each minute.
Meanwhile, the Lord of the Rings has approximately $1.3 MILLION invested in each minute.
So… there’s that. For anyone like me who’s kind of a nerd about stuff like that, you’re welcome. And it explains why it feels so much lower in quality. And I can forgive that.
But all that to say… it’s no Lord of the Rings.
Secondly, some of the casting choices have struck me as a little… odd… but then, it’s rare for casting to mirror my own personal images of characters as I read about them, so that’s probably just me. The acting has been pretty good, so far. (With the exception of that moment I mentioned earlier). Right now, the actor I don’t like the most is the one playing Mat Cauthon. Mat is one of my favorites from the books, and the person playing him sort of reminds me of the sleazy Alfred character from the Hobbit movies and it’s more than a little off-putting. Mat is supposed to be a trouble-maker, yes, an imp, full of humor and mischief, always getting into trouble… yes. But a shady character skating on the raggedy edge of the law and prone to stealing? Not so much. And yes, Mat was a flirt, but he wasn’t a creepy/sleazy flirt like he’s portrayed in the show. Also, his parents… were NOT horrible people in the book the way they have decided to make them in the show. So all of that frustrates me. And I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole Perrin accidentally killing his not-in-the-book wife in episode one. On the one hand, I get it… but on the other hand… well… it feels a little like lazy writing.
Third, someone apparently decided that instead of keeping the richly varied heritages of the world Robert Jordan created, that had quite a lot of diversity and interesting unique cultures built in and ready-made… they would just create a world in which every single people group we run into looks like the cover of a school magazine that is trying to portray itself as being epically diverse. And while this makes sense with a group like the Aes Sedai and their Warders, who come from all over the world. It doesn’t make sense in every. single. new place we visit.
Fourth, so far, I don’t hate the show. That’s not to say that I love it. I’m not even sure I like it. But I went in very cautiously, very pessimistically, and very prepared for it to have tons of nudity and having to turn it off and never speak of it again. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised to find that is not the case. The show is heavy-handed on the themes of women being in charge… but that’s straight out of the books. The matriarchy that exists in the world has come into being because of the Dark One’s taint on sai’din, which has thrown the world out of balance. It’s not supposed to be that way. That is why the pattern brings back the Dragon Reborn, to try to correct the imbalances and problems. So the fact that the imbalance is being shown, or that the Red Ajah are more than a little off the rails and rabid when it comes to their self-appointed task of ridding the world of sai’din users specifically (and possibly all men in general) is… pretty true to the books, actually. That’s not to say that it’s being portrayed as a good thing, but as how the story world currently operates.
Fifth, I’m actually really appreciating how well the show is doing when it comes to misdirection about which of our characters is going to end up being identified as the Dragon Reborn. If you’ve read the books, of course you already know who it is. But if you haven’t, I can imagine that watching this show you have a few theories, and I can also imagine it being pretty easy to settle on the wrong character as who you think it is. Personally, I think that’s pretty clever of the writers.
Sixth, the violence in this show is quite graphic. Wow. Um… also, I think they spent a LOT of their budget on episode 4 trying to make Lan bleeding out look realistic. So… if you’re not a fan of blood… yeah, this isn’t a show I’d recommend.
Seventh and finally, the one thing this show does have going for it is that it’s really making me want to do an epic re-read of the entire series. Which could take me a while. I told Derek it wouldn’t take as long for me to read it as to listen to it… (we have all the audiobooks) as the audiobooks would probably take me four and a half years. He started to call me out on exaggerating, then paused, remembering that I’m currently using audiobooks to help myself fall asleep at night and average about 8 minutes before I fall asleep (this is huge, y’all… as a former insomniac… this is HUGE). So yeh, listening to them… four and a half years might actually be optimistic. LOL
Have you watched any of the Wheel of Time show? What do you think of it?
Have you read the Wheel of Time books? Do you enjoy them?
If you’ve watched both Game of Thrones and Wheel of Time, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how they stack up. I’m probably never going to watch GoT, but I’m kind of curious how the two compare from a budget/acting/special effects stance.
Did I give too many spoilers? I’ve never reviewed a show on an episode-by-episode basis and I’m not sure I’m doing it right. Also, I apologize for the length… 4 episodes is a lot of ground to cover!
Do you like listening to audio books?