Wheel of Time

[Hiromi]

urgh they really fumbled the ending here, whole thing seems to be haphazardly thrown together
spoilers:

Whole Rand and Moraine segment was just bleugh, though the dream sequence was good and something they should have been doing all season to establish Ishamael. Yin Yang symbol seems to obviously have been the Dark One's seal which Ishamael tricked Rand into damaging, kudos on this it's a decent idea having Moraine lose her power for an obvious storyline next season when the Witcher is doing the EXACT SAME STORYLINE at the same time is just annoying Not having anything involving Mat after the Ways entrance other than a 2 second shot of him walking was not a good decision Perrin and Lan's role were laughably bad here kinda ehhhhh on the changes they're making to Padan Fayne and the Horn storyline here but willing to go with it for now(maybe he and Mat will just trade artifacts at some point) Calling Lews Therin the "Dragon Reborn" made the book fan in me want start breaking things entire last battle looked cheap and having five channelers of whom three were supposed to be weak and all untrained make a circle at all much less actually completely decimate an army of thousands was at best a questionable choice not really sold on the costumes for the Seanchan here, and seriously I know you want to establish they have channelers as weapons but making an enormous tidal wave to attack a completely deserted beach was just dumb

end of spoilers

So thats season 1, some promise here hopefully the find more focus and tighten it up for season 2, which to be fair is what happened in the books as well

[DennisTheMenace]

well unless the show is 20 seasons long that alone tells me a major story bit they're going to just completely not do at all, can't say it bothers me all THAT much as that's a story element that with hindsight could probably have been done better

If you cut the endless descriptions of clothes, feasts, braid tugging, and other long-winded nonsense, the book series would be cut in half. Book 10 could be completely omitted because nothing happened. It was a 14 book series, with about 6-8 books of actual story.

[Zero Hunter]

I enjoyed the first season overall. It did have some missfires though which I am hoping that now that they have a season under their belt they can iron out in season 2. I'm sure the departure of one of their main characters before the end did mess things up quite a bit behind the scenes. You can tell that scene with Perrin and Padan Fain was changed because it was supposed to be Mat which would have made way more sense.

I was a little shocked at the ending because It seems way to early for them to show up.

[Hiromi]

Not really, they show up in the second book, albeit not their main force

[Gray Lensman]

I enjoyed the first season overall. It did have some missfires though which I am hoping that now that they have a season under their belt they can iron out in season 2. I'm sure the departure of one of their main characters before the end did mess things up quite a bit behind the scenes. You can tell that scene with Perrin and Padan Fain was changed because it was supposed to be Mat which would have made way more sense.

I was a little shocked at the ending because It seems way to early for them to show up.

What's funny about Fain is that without that dagger he is much more of a nemesis for Perrin than Mat. Laila's fate makes Perrin hate violence, but if they follow the books Fain will make Perrin accept the necessity of it much more than he affects anyone else.

[Ascended]

Wrote a whole post about the finale yesterday, but my pc crashed and I lost it.

I thought the finale was....about the same as the rest of the season. Nearly any scene, taken in a vacuum, is good. But they introduced stuff and move on so quickly, none of it has time to set in, and the whole story feels thinner for it and I fear a lot of connections and context are lost if you don't know what you're looking for. Despite almost every individual aspect of the show being decent-to-great, it's somehow less than the sum of its parts.

As always, I struggle with the changes from the source material, and sometimes the budget limitations are hard to ignore. The Blight was too quiet, the battle at the Gap barely seen, etc.

spoilers:

I'm actually cool with how they handled the Eye sequence. Making the Eye one of the Seals to the Dark One's prison makes the Eye feel far more cohesive with the rest of the narrative and gives the Eye a purpose the novels never did. And making the Seals these big tiles is something they can probably get away with right up to the Last Battle, where they'll have to change events with Egwene and Logain. I also liked how this confrontation foreshadows Rand's actual Last Battle, and using Ishmael instead of Aginor and....Be'lal?....felt far more poignant. And making the whole thing a trap so Rand breaks the Seal? That's actually an improvement on the novel, despite screwing with the setting's rules and standards. I'm oddly okay with Rand not defeating the army at the Gap. That always felt like a tacked on note; overshadowed by his defeating Aginor and barely relevant to anything, and there's other moments that better capture his power and role as the Dragon (like Falme). Plus it gave the girls something to do, and this show is far more of a true ensemble than the first few novels were. Not sure how I feel about Rand leaving the Blight like this. I suppose they'll have him start his trip to Tear from here, and sidestep/change his part in the whole "hunt for the Horn" plot. But how all that will change the story.....I hope Rafe has this whole thing plotted out because these changes could easily snowball, get out of control, and they'll lose their grip on the actual story before the story has well and truly even begun. Moiraine being stilled is....wow. Huge. I suppose from this point on, her role doesn't *really* require her to channel (at least not often, so there's work arounds) but I wonder how it'll impact Siuan, Nyn discovering a way to Heal stilling, etc. My guess is Moiraine takes over Suian's plotlines, which makes a degree of sense if the goal is to keep Pike active in the show. The Seanchan look perfect. Great way to introduce them.

end of spoilers

The first novel's finale never did "wow" me, so it's not surprising that this show failed too. But I think the entire season showed a lot of promise, especially once the story got moving. Each week, the show seemed to get better. I'm hoping season 2 can continue that; if we can make it as far as the events of book 4 without totally screwing up then I think the show might manage to go the full distance. I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with it, being the novel purist that I am, but I think it could grow into a respectable adaptation if they can manage to juggle the necessary cuts and changes against the necessary story/character beats.

I was a little shocked at the ending because It seems way to early for them to show up.

You actually hear rumors about them in the first novel. They had already arrived by the time Rand and the others were making their way to Caemyln but it's not until book 2 that you meet some of them. I think the show brought them in at a good time; it sets up an obvious problem for next season with a compelling teaser and it's not too far off the source material.

[Hiromi]

As for Moraine
spoilers:

given that Ishamael tainted her about being able to feel saidar but not use it I’m assuming she’s just shielded with the weave tied off, we see that in the books in other cases. If she IS actually stilled I would think they’d accelerate Nynaeve discovering how to heal stilling/gentling

end of spoilers

[Jackalope89]

As for Moraine
spoilers:

given that Ishamael tainted her about being able to feel saidar but not use it I’m assuming she’s just shielded with the weave tied off, we see that in the books in other cases. If she IS actually stilled I would think they’d accelerate Nynaeve discovering how to heal stilling/gentling

end of spoilers

Well;
spoilers:

Considering Egwene healed a near dead Nynaeve, there's that... Son of a... Still irks me. Nynaeve is supposed to be the healer, where Egwene is supposed to be strong in Earth. I get this is an adaptation, but changing even fundamental things to the characters? Rafe is pushing my patience with all of these things.

end of spoilers

[thwhtGuardian]

I could never get into the book, but thought the series looked good from the trailers so I think I had a pretty open mind...but I have to say after that finale I don't think I'll be catching any of season 2...and I'm sorry for those that are enjoying it but I kind of hope Amazon pulls the plug sooner rather than latter so they have more money to spend on actually decent productions.

[newparisian]

Watched the finale last night, and I will not be returning for season 2. Honestly I should've stopped after ep 3. Along with being derivative of LotR, nothing here stands out. Every character is a sullen bore. No charm or wit, really. No Tyrion or Aragorn, someone I'm hankering to get back on the screen after their scene ends. The Perrin character seems to only have a singular facial expression. The show is just not thrilling enough to be an action adventure, nor dramatic enough to be a water-cooler convo starter. Fight scenes are forgettable and, as in the case of faux Osgiliath-Minas Tirith battle in the finale, downright terrible looking. The politics at the white tower were, I mean, nothing new. Oh different factions have different goals? No way! Also, overall there doesn't seem to be much of an urgency to their quest. Like, in the 7th ep the Rand character twigs to who he is, and then they're off to see the Wizard, as it were. What happened to those all-white wearing douches? They seemed interesting and good foils for the fellowship. They just disappeared. And the main conflict is whether Rand will turn good or bad, and that's the knife's edge future seasons will be based on? Like, sure, that's fine, but I've just seen that too many times and it's not being done in a different or interesting enough way here to stand out and warrant another 8 hours of my life, y'know.

This show reminded me of a Raimi-Tapert joint from 2008 called Legend of the Seeker, which was also about a group of female warrior priestesses looking after a dude who could be the messiah or a villain. And frankly when a show from 13 years ago has more charm, better fights and sometimes SFX than something created in the post-GoT era, then that's not a show worth watching, for me. I wish the books' fans the best of luck with future seasons.

[Jackalope89]

Watched the finale last night, and I will not be returning for season 2. Honestly I should've stopped after ep 3. Along with being derivative of LotR, nothing here stands out. Every character is a sullen bore. No charm or wit, really. No Tyrion or Aragorn, someone I'm hankering to get back on the screen after their scene ends. The Perrin character seems to only have a singular facial expression. The show is just not thrilling enough to be an action adventure, nor dramatic enough to be a water-cooler convo starter. Fight scenes are forgettable and, as in the case of faux Osgiliath-Minas Tirith battle in the finale, downright terrible looking. The politics at the white tower were, I mean, nothing new. Oh different factions have different goals? No way! Also, overall there doesn't seem to be much of an urgency to their quest. Like, in the 7th ep the Rand character twigs to who he is, and then they're off to see the Wizard, as it were. What happened to those all-white wearing douches? They seemed interesting and good foils for the fellowship. They just disappeared. And the main conflict is whether Rand will turn good or bad, and that's the knife's edge future seasons will be based on? Like, sure, that's fine, but I've just seen that too many times and it's not being done in a different or interesting enough way here to stand out and warrant another 8 hours of my life, y'know.

This show reminded me of a Raimi-Tapert joint from 2008 called Legend of the Seeker, which was also about a group of female warrior priestesses looking after a dude who could be the messiah or a villain. And frankly when a show from 13 years ago has more charm, better fights and sometimes SFX than something created in the post-GoT era, then that's not a show worth watching, for me. I wish the books' fans the best of luck with future seasons.

Yeah. This show barely followed the first book. The ending did almost nothing of the book, besides mention names.

[Ascended]

As for Moraine....

spoilers:

She might just be shielded, it's true. But a stilled woman can also sense the Power, she just can't touch it (men can't sense the Power at all after being gentled, they just feel the void where it should be). And given her reaction, I don't think she was shielded. Sure, if Ishmael tied off the weave, it's a shield that won't unravel any time soon, nor is she likely to find anyone with the skill and power to untie it. But the barely controlled panic and loss didn't say "shield" to me, it said "stilled." But maybe you're right, we'll see next season. If she is stilled, I definitely think Nyn's subplot will be accelerated to resolve the problem by season's end.

end of spoilers

And I can't blame the folks who aren't feeling the show or returning for season 2. Show feels pretty thin compared to the books and I feel like, as a book fan, I pick up on a lot that casual viewers would have no way of getting. And not in a "easter egg" kind of way, but in a "this scene is important to the plot and they're not providing enough context for the casuals" kind of way.

[Jackalope89]

Bare minimum, keep Rafe Judkins from being a show writer (he wrote ep8).

spoilers:

We now have it confirmed that Ceara Coveney will be Elayne. And two more that are unconfirmed, but I'm 90% positive one will be Verin. The other, maybe Faile? Not totally sure.

end of spoilers

[Ascended]

Do we really need to put casting news in spoilers? And I remember reading this a while ago, I don't even think it's new?

I will, of course, wait for the actual show before making a real judgement, and I'm not familiar with the actress at all so she might knock it out of the park and be the best part of the show. But just visually, I'm not feeling it. Elaine is supposed to be ridiculously pretty. It's actually an important character trait (she uses her looks when she thinks it'll benefit her, it influences a lot of her interactions for both good and bad, etc). And this actress is very pretty, don't get me wrong, but more "girl next door" and not "out of your league regardless of what league you're in" yknow?

[Gray Lensman]

Do we really need to put casting news in spoilers? And I remember reading this a while ago, I don't even think it's new?

I will, of course, wait for the actual show before making a real judgement, and I'm not familiar with the actress at all so she might knock it out of the park and be the best part of the show. But just visually, I'm not feeling it. Elaine is supposed to be ridiculously pretty. It's actually an important character trait (she uses her looks when she thinks it'll benefit her, it influences a lot of her interactions for both good and bad, etc). And this actress is very pretty, don't get me wrong, but more "girl next door" and not "out of your league regardless of what league you're in" yknow?

The problem there is that group seems to be made up of two types of people. One: models who can't act their way out of a paper bag, and Two: people who command top dollar. The former would detract from the show, the latter is probably out of the price range. The only person in that category who I can recall making a similar show was Eva Green on Penny Dreadful - and Eva Green has been described by multiple women I know as being gorgeous enough that if she propositioned them they'd seriously consider it despite not having any attraction to other women.