'The Wheel of Time', Episodes 1-3


Before we get started, it's worth letting you know that these are the words of a man who finished 'Knife of Dreams' but had been burned by 'Crossroads of Twilight' and never finished the series. I still don't really know how it ended, how did it end? Anyone...?

What I also am though is a guy who will watch anything on TV if it's fantasy. Okay, within reason' I never watched 'Legend of the Seeker' but I would probably have watched the 'Shannara' TV show if I could have got to it at the time. Anyway... There's still a big 'Fantasy TV' shaped hole in my TV watching so I was always going to give 'The Wheel of Time' a go, even if an tiny part of me was dreading getting bogged down in all the nonsense that the Aes Sedai Ajahs get up to. Yes, I remember only too well...

I couldn't resist it though so here goes.

First up, I'm not telling you what happens because you've either read the books already or you watched the show as well. If you're in the third group, that's not bothering with either, or the fourth group, that's wavering between the first two groups... Well, no spoilers here ;o) Lets give everyone a chance to get caught up shall we? What I will say though is that they were never going to fit everything into the show so they didn't even try, preferring instead to concentrate on the main bits and let those drive the plot. And you know what? I liked that approach. A little introduction to the players and then throw a whole load of Trollocs (who look bloody scary actually, wouldn't want to bump into one of those...) into the mix and let the plot fly. And it does, along with the help of various Whitecloaks and Darkfriends. And the 'horse eating' creeping darkness in Shadar Logoth, that poor horse... :o( The bottom line is that I only meant to watch the first episode and found myself steaming through the other two as well so that approach did its job and very well too. I'm also a bit of a fan of the whole 'just enough swearing to be real but not too much' approach. There will be inevitable comparisons with 'Game of Thrones', I'm sure, but it's nice to see 'The Wheel of Time' looking for its own identity rather than trying to draw on what made a certain other show popular.

So, not a bad story then (so far, anyway). It has been ages since I read the books so I've got no real basis for comparison, not yet, but these first three episodes did everything right in terms of holding my interest and getting a little promise from me that I'll be back on Friday to see Episode 4 play out.

And this is in no small part due to how gorgeous it all looks with this amazing landscape (with hints of that past apocalypse) that just grabs your eyes. I keep talking about identity here but this is another way that 'The Wheel of Time' is forging its own path. You won't look at this and think to yourself 'ooh, stock photos from Game of Thrones', lets put it that way.

I think it's a bit early to be saying much about the characters other than that everyone seems to know what they are doing and are just getting on with it really. My favourites so far are Daniel Henney's Lan Mandragoran (he has made a promise and you can see how it binds him, even in these early episodes, just so happens to be an awesome fighter too) and Zoe Robins' Nynaeve al'Meara (who is the strongest character here and has the happy luck of not being anywhere near as bloody annoying as she was in the book...) Expect these to change as the Season progresses...

So yeah, not bad at all. I'll definitely be back for the rest of the Season now, how about you?

The first three episodes of 'The Wheel of Time' are,

'Leavetaking'

'Shadow's Waiting'

'A Place of Safety'

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