The Wheel of Time - Season 1

⭐ 7.5/10

(Originally written by Will)

I generally enjoyed this quite a bit, though there are unfortunately some significant flaws as well. I'm cautiously optimistic that season 2 will get better, given a little more budget and some lessons learned from season 1 about what worked and what didn't.

What Worked For Me

1. They chose some really great shooting locations that looked great on screen. I'm thinking of the scene in episode 1 or 2 where they're leaving the village and looking back, and you can see the trolloc torches in the distance, for example.
2. I was nervous about the budget and how all the magical stuff would look - the trollocs turned out pretty solid, and the fades were pretty badass, especially the first fade scene where it gets stuck on the other side of the river.
3. I was pretty happy with the casting, especially Moiraine and Nynaeve. Perrin was the one that stood out to me as a weak spot though.

What Didn't Work For Me

1. Tar Valon and The Ways both looked really weak to me. Scenes in Tar Valon made the city look tiny and the streets and buildings so small, it was hard not to notice it the entire time. The Ways were the same - just looked so small, like clearly a lower budget tv show.
2. There's a lot of background world building that needs doing and it can't possibly all be fit in, but they did not find a good balance. Almost an entire episode on the warder bond might be fine if you have 10-12 hour-long episodes in a season, but it felt like a waste of time here.
3. How on earth is Egwene raising Nynaeve from the dead? I'm really unclear whether she was supposed to look dead or not, but either way it's weak that every time someone dies (or near to it) we have a moment of sadness followed by last-minute healing. The first time was fine - the second time was cheap.
4. The final episode with Rand felt really anti-climactic, especially for people who haven't read the book.
5. Etc but I'll stop here.