lots of potential but covid and actor complications left them with an uneven season and a mess of a finale. already renewed for 2 more seasons so could be worth the investment. I’ll continue to watch.
Some of the best source material you could possibly ask for should hopefully save it, assuming they shorten up some of the slower books.
So season 1 was an uneven / mess or season 2? Just so I'll be mentally prepared for some head scratching
as someone unfamiliar with the source material, Season 1 was pretty damn good, just not sure about what I saw in the last 2 episodes.
Some book readers (purists) hated it. I read the books and I really enjoyed the first 4 episodes. The final 2 were heavily impacted by the covid break and protocols as well as one of the main actors quitting during the break, so they were forced to rework the script and it was disappointing. They have the budget, the actors, and the source material to make a great show. Nothing that happened to date can ruin it, although a cpuple of late plot choices were questionable. I still think there is so much here to make this better going forward. 6.5/10 for me last season, although 8/10 prior to the last two episodes, so lots of hope.
There are good aspects to the show, but they completely changed some of the core mythology, background, and how the magic system works to make it unrecognizable in some aspects.
Watched season 1 over the past week. Very slow burn and quite confusing for someone who knows zero about the show/terminology etc for the first ~2 episodes. Pacing and storytelling in episodes 3-6 were good and really enjoyed some of the character development during those Was prepared for 7 & 8 to be "off" thanks to the thread and as per usual TMB show thread reviews are accurate. Everybody started fucking and the pacing went to shit. Big Perrin fan. Great acting by that guy, but being a Ted Lasso fan he reminded me so much of the actor who plays the barber defensive captain and I kept waiting on him to say "Bruv" and he never did that for me The red head actor does nothing for me. He's honestly kind of creepy and could do a ginger reboot of T-1000 if need be. Guy is really bad at portraying any type of emotion. It's just not believable. Both the GF and me knew in Ep1 that he was going to be the dragon too, which sucks because he's the worst actor on the show but whatever... Big fan of this story's idea and usage of magic. It just seems like a fresh take on something. Also the concept of what it does to men and the red womens' job of hunting and taking it away is a new and good concept Hated the Bard/Gleeman's song (more of a Witcher's Bard guy), but loved everything else about him and his character. Hopefully him not being shown dying on screen means he's not gone for good, but the way people talked about Fades in the show would make me think he "should" be dead. Man did the Wisdom do a 180 and make me eat my words. Through ~4 episodes: "so she can listen to the wind, but she didn't hear about the 100 bullmen coming for her village (I get the waygate thing explained later but still) and she's a healer but she can't heal the wound on Moiraine... what a shitty Wisdom" The Seer was a really cool addition and plot device. Also the way the actress went about it - bar back that takes shots while telling you fucked up shit that's going to happen = 100% cooler and again a "fresh take" on a character that 99% of the time is some blind hermit that lives in a thatch hut on the outskirts of town. Loved everything about the Seer aspect and every scene she was in As someone that has played a handful of fantasy RPGs on gaming consoles over the years, seeing stuff incorporated from stories like this (blight was one of them) into current fantasy games is kinda cool. Some questions and if the answer is a spoiler then just say so and don't answer, and if it's something I missed in the show apologies Is Perrin's wolf link "ability" actually "magic"? He didn't channel anything the way everyone else has been, with the whirly sparkle wind looking particles. He just lights up his eyes and shit happens. But Egwene was like don't let anyone know about that or they'll take it from you. Is the black goo that killed the green Aes just supposed to be seen as "dark magic that kills you" or what? And I'm assuming that it essentially kills people instantly on contact and that's why the mass healing magic that Nynaeve did on the group didnt' work on her? Can only revive people that are "mostly dead" but not "all dead"? All in all - good season of TV and a good setting for a multi-season fantasy story. I just hope Rand takes some fucking acting classes.
Rand (the red head) is not a very dynamic character in the books either. I didn’t have an issue with the way he was portrayed. He is extremely frustrating at times in the books too. I think of him more as a plot device that other characters bend around rather than some super interesting compelling character. It gets worse before it gets slightly better from here. wisdoms are not supposed to be the end all be all of anything. They are more like town doctors/female leaders. Most, if not all are unaware they may have some untapped aes Sendai potential with magic, which saying this out loud now feels like a bit of a plot hole in that either the aes Sendai should be looking here for novices or wisdoms should be aware of the possibility. The books are mostly silent on this in mass. as far as questions go… it depends how you define magic, but it is not a spell as much as an ability/race feature to equate it into rpg terminology. not really sure what the black goo was other than a weave that Nynaeve did not have the power or knowledge to reverse.
Essentially is it something that the Red Aes can take away the same way they take away channeling abilities. I'd say in my mind "magic" would be channeling and this is more of an "ability" basically compare the powers of Melisandre vs. Bran/Worgs in GoT.
No, channeling should have no effect on it, although dream walking is something that some aes Sendai can do that is also a skill of people like Perrin. That’s a fair comparison though.
Also maybe the least favorite / biggest headscratcher scene was the dream conversation with Rand and the Dark One. Not sure if it was the choice in actor for his human form or if it was a poor adaptation or what but that scene felt so out of place and just random and weird. Like it took the Dark one from being some kinda scary omniscient being and turned him into a douchey persian creep that wears a rolex to pool parties in miami. The dialogue was incredibly bad for a one-on-one convo with the "hero" and "villain" of the story
Yes, most of us did not like the way that was done. That said, if what occurred is based on the books (loosely even) then there are some issues with your assessment, but I don't want to spoil any more than I have right now. Whatever it was though, I agree it was annoying and poorly done.
I have hope for her show adaptation. I think they have to know how annoying they made her in the books (unintentionally) and will take steps for us to not have all of those same feelings.
I thought it was pretty unintentionally hilarious that Nynaeve acted like a total hard ass to Moiraine in the caves about how fiercely and dangerously she would protect her village and the kids, and then when the fight breaks out she's like the first one to get knocked TF out and goes MIA while her village is ravaged. Also the fact that she missed what actually happened (Moir and Ward basically doing her job for her) and then acts like a cunt to those same people, one of whom was dying and needed help, was terrible. One of those situations in cinema where a very simple 1-2 sentences about them defending her village while she was awol could have put a pin in their little squabble.
Absolutely loved Peter Franzen in the show Vikings and he was great in his role as a ward. Dude just gets cast to wield axes and fuck shit up
Yes, that is pretty much her but that scene where she gets knocked out does not happen in the books. She is with them when they leave.
well then that was a garbage choice by whoever adapted that part... does the same shadow town split-up happen in the books, and the characters end up separated the same way 3-2-2? curious how that would have went down considering she doesn't seem to leave the kids sides and wouldn't have been off lollygaggin with Moir and the Ward when it all happened.
They get split up by threads of mashadar in shadar logoth while trying to escape the trollocs. Perrin and egwein swim the river and find Elias, hopper and the pack. Then the tinkers where they hear about sightblinder blinding the eye of the world. Matt, rand and thom jump on bael domons boat and head to white bridge. Nyneve tracks down Lan and Moiraine and they go in search of Perrin because he still has his token and is nearer. not sure how close that is to the show because, as @blackfish suggested, I gave up on this “adaptation” pretty early. Heard enough from other readers to feel confident it was the correct choice. Started my annual re-read though and thought I’d check in.
I have probably read/listened to the entire series 10 times and the earlier books triple that. I can go Uber nerd. AMA.
Mat and it isn’t close. Perrin would be boring and pining for the worst character in the series. Rand would be talking to the voice in his head. Mat though, his old tongue is just *chefs kiss* retort, FKM. Min, elayne, and tuon.
Either it’s the edibles or my advancing age but I just put calendar reminders for Season 2 and a S1 rewatch two weeks prior on my phone
Read this actually becomes available tonight but worst case is tomorrow. Excited to see what they’ve done.
Watching episode 1 and I have no idea who most of these people are and don’t remember s1 being good enough to go back and rewatch
Lol the guy who is sick from the dagger is a completely different actor from the s1 recap they showed. I had to stop and google that one
I think there was more to it than even that. The last two episodes were filmed after the covid pause under different rules so they had to entirely change the production and some of the script to accommodate.
Thought it was funny in his first scene that she had to mention his name multiple times to make sure we knew who he was.
They’ve changed so many random things from the source material for seemingly no reason that it’s distracting to me.
I don’t remember all the book details so changes aren’t bothering me. I do wish they’d stop insisting that every time they change scenes needs to be on a mini cliffhanger. It’s a decent start. But I do worry that even having read the books it’s confusing. It’s too big and deep of a world and they don’t have time to slowly build it so everything is just thrown at you. Just seems unlikely they’ll be able to get and hold most viewers but we’ll see.
I had to go back and watch the finale of last season to understand why I wasn’t remembering how each group got to where they are. It didn’t help, they literally just hyper jumped each group without even telling us they were breaking up. I have my bearings now, but I don’t recall where everyone was in book 2. It also feels like Liandrin has a much different and larger part. Her jaw line is so hard to look at. I have no idea where Selene came from. I feel like that needed explanation.
Started watching S2E1 and shut it off after 20 minutes. Feels like this isn’t going to be worth the investment.
I enjoyed the three episodes. Not the best television, but worth a watch. The sets and locations are pretty amazing. I actually thought the last two episodes were pretty well done. I was just so confused by where they started from. I am also intentionally not letting myself recall the book detail, so as not to be annoyed. Spoiler there does seem to be a prevalence of black ajah among the aes Sendai they are featuring. Feels a bit unbalanced in that regard.
I wish I could do this, but I remember the books just well enough for it to be annoying when they just throw random events with major characters in there that didn’t happen in the book and make me question my memory.
Still trying to enjoy it though, I think the casting and portrayal of most of the characters has been really good.