Rafe Judkins claims to be a big fan of the books, but you'd never know it after watching this bafflingly faithless adaptation. Longtime WoT enthusiasts (guilty) will be annoyed by the myriad changes to the story, characters, and tone, newcomers will be confused by the clumsy worldbuilding, and everyone will find the pacing too haphazard to connect to the characters or understand what's going on and why. Blood and bloody ashes.

This plus The Witcher Season 2 really emblematize the dearth of competent showrunners when it comes to straight-faced high fantasy. More playful approaches give more leeway but taking fantasy seriously demands a lot. You need believable characters and patient storytelling to immerse the viewer into the world. Faults (of which there are many here) hack at the verisimilitude and once it breaks everything crumbles and you are left with cosplayers on sound stages gesturing at the wind.

Ignorence is bliss when it's come to the book adaptations. I didn't read any of the books and enjoyed the first season, the characters worldbuilding etc.. It is not an excellent series by any means, sloppy storytelling time to time but there is lots of room for improvement, can be so much better in future seasons. The wheel of Time is interesting and attention grabbing enough for me to want and wait for more. I hope it lasts for several seasons... S1: 7/10 S2: 8/10

I gave it the benefit of the doubt until the end of the season but ... The show is a bastardised, stupidified, grim-darkified, soapy-fied mess. What a disgrace. It's barely worthwhile as its own thing. It's wretched as an adaptation of the books. They had an $80 million budget for the first season--that's $10 million per episode--and they produced this amateur show with sitcom lighting and styrofoam sets ... It's inexcusable. Just read the books!

When I was young, the books bored me to death and I don't remember much about them (except their weight, try to read a hardback of 1000 pages as a kid, it hurts your arms). Turns out that the setting is pretty cool and the first season brings a lot of punch and cool character development. The second season I found much less engaging and had a final which is too reminiscent of the first one; if they will keep on doing this, I will stop after the third season I think. Seanchan masks are great,

stats to get better after episode 3.

This rating is higher than it would be only because the trailers looked promising. The first episode was not worth finishing, and I don't care if it gets good later. This is a clear red flag that the show writers are too incompetent to do the most important part of the job: create an engaging pilot that establishes the show.

Love this series!

It wasn't horrible. The acting and cast were great. The writers made a bad decision attempting to squeeze a few books into one season. It could be amazing, but it's just good.

Although I read several (3? 7? no idea) of the books in the '90s, I do not remember a single thing about them. (Except that the magic system involves weaving? Maybe?) Anyway, I quit after 2 episodes. The characters are just really bad. Rand especially is insufferable, I couldn't watch any more of him.

Had potential but didn't execute it perfectly. Not bad.

I think this series was decent. It's not as good as it wants to me. The visuals are nice, and the world certainly has some interesting elements, but I find the show losing me a lot of the time, and end up not remembering much of what happened when I think back to it months later. It's entertaining enough to watch while it's on, but doesn't seem to be memorable.

It's okay. I won't complain about the books like most people do, instead I'll complain about how dull the whole show is, and how confusing they make it by giving little personality to the main characters, making them interchangeable and building no stakes. I hope it continues and does well, but I'm out after one season.

Underwhelming for a post GOT era series

Very good and on point to the book

It's missing a bit of world building, especially with regard to the source and how weaving works. Some episodes feels unnecessary. But still quite enjoyable. Perfect casting for Rosamund Pike btw :)

Decently enjoyable sort of generic Chosen One vs Dark Lord epic quest fantasy for its first season. Has a bit of cheesier, chintzier feel to it than early Game of Thrones did in both its storytelling and production quality. Don’t know how much real crossover reach it will have to people not already inclined to buy thick paperbacks with dragons/orcs/elves/wizards on the cover. But that’s a category I am in, so… *shrug*

This guy ripped off Dune in the most obvious way, got accused of ripping off Lord of the Rings for some reason, and still got his shitty books adapted? It really does pay to be derivative.

ger; [das rad der zeit; the wheel of time -- SERIE]; in einer magischen welt soll ein auserwählter die menschheit schützen oder zerstören - eine magierin sucht die person.; (folgen visuell stark gekapselt, gutes setting, serie fühlt sich leblos an; 2. Staffel 40); {Folgen: S01E01-S02E08};

First ep is a mess and a terrible intro that will probably make a lot of people stay away from the show, but then it embraces the generic High Fantasy clichés and becomes a decent enough fantasy adventure. I'm pretty sure it will improve over time. Right now, my score (53) is based on the first 3 eps. It will change next Friday. No, I haven't read the novels.