‘The Wheel of Time' Was a Damn Good Show
Three seasons—and then an abrupt end. It's a routine genre fans are unfortunately familiar with. There are still people out there (me included) holding out hope for fourth seasons of The Orville and Hannibal. The latest three-season casualty is Prime Video's The Wheel of Time.
Sometimes a miracle happens and another platform steps in; remember when Lucifer made three seasons at Fox, then got resurrected for three more at Netflix? Or when The Expanse was rescued from the Syfy scrap heap after its third season, and got a few more notches on its belt from Amazon?
Amazon's the one doing the scrapping this time around: The Wheel of Time fans learned last week that the fantasy show will not be returning for a fourth season. Pickup elsewhere seems like a grim prospect, no matter how passionate the online outcry, mostly because the reason given for its cancellation was how much it cost to produce—a price tag that apparently wasn't justified by its viewership numbers.
That's a true shame, because The Wheel of Time was a damn good show.
Its budget wasn't as lavish as Prime Video's other big fantasy series—The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is currently working on its own third season—but it definitely wasn't made on the cheap. It had a large cast headed up by Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred; though the rest of the main characters were mostly played by up-and-comers, more familiar faces (Sophie Okonedo, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Olivia Williams, Lindsay Duncan, Hayley Mills) were sprinkled through the supporting cast.
Across the board the performances were excellent; special shout-out to Madeleine Madden for Egwene's absolutely searing season-two arc, though.
Its production values were outstanding; on a show filled with a vast array of cultures across diverse landscapes—deserts, forests, cities, villages, throne rooms, dungeons, freaky in-between worlds—it did a striking job creating tones and textures that felt distinct and detailed. The costumes were particularly notable in this regard. I'm still haunted by the spooky outfits, especially the gold mouth shields, forced onto the magic-wielding 'damane' slaves in season two.
The special effects were also impressive, bringing both practical creatures (Loial the Ogier, brought to life by Hammed Animashaun in heavy prosthetics, being particularly emotive) and mystical magic 'weaves' to the screen.
Much like Lord of the Rings, The Wheel of Time is based on a beloved book series, though as popular as Robert Jordan's work is, it's definitely not part of mainstream culture the same way JRR Tolkien's work is. There's no Oscar-winning trilogy of epic movies for The Wheel of Time, for one thing. Though there had been games (both video and tabletop) based on The Wheel of Time in the past, the TV adaptation drew in a lot of newcomers along with seasoned readers, and the show was careful to remain accessible for the former while also dotting in winks and Easter eggs for the latter.
The worldbuilding was high-quality, and if the story felt familiar and trope-y at times—it's kind of Tolkien meets Game of Thrones but with more women-powered magic, and an end-of-the-world prophecy that's both cyclical and inevitable—the series, broken into eight-part seasons of episodes that ran at or just under an hour, was still propulsive and enjoyable.
The tone was overall fairly serious (as we mentioned, the fate of the world is at stake here!), and many of its storylines dealt with darker themes of trauma and grief, as well as the frustration of being powerless to control one's fate, especially in a world where prophecies are seen as both irrefutable and subject to interpretation, depending on who you ask.
But The Wheel of Time also made room for humor, romance, music, and even some delightfully campy moments, especially as the show found its footing in seasons two and three.
Perhaps the biggest bummer about the show's cancellation is that it was clearly building toward something very big. The Wheel of Time's 'Last Battle' is, as implied, the showdown at the end of days between the Dragon Reborn, the reincarnated chosen one, and a villain so sinister he's known only as the 'Dark One,' with lieutenants running around among humankind known as 'Darkfriends' (if they're mortal) and 'Forsaken' (if they're not).
The Last Battle was teased throughout all the show's seasons, with the character of Rand learning in season one that he was the Dragon Reborn. Season two followed him as he came to terms with that awful yet awesome responsibility, compounded by the known fact that in this world, men with magical abilities will inevitably go insane. And season three saw him begin to prepare, strengthening his control over his burgeoning powers while building an army of supporters.
Every other character, without exception, is also invested in the Last Battle in some way. They're on different sides and serve different purposes, but they're all counting down to it just the same. It is the defining event of the story. Everyone knows it's coming. And Amazon pulled the plug before the show got there.
This is all the more crushing because Wheel of Time series creator Rafe Judkins had high hopes that Amazon would grant the space to tell 'the whole story,' as he explained to io9 in an interview ahead of season three. There are over a dozen books in the Jordan series, so you can't imagine he meant that Wheel of Time would continue for a decade. But he definitely had plans for a fourth and maybe a fifth season, and you can tell that season three was plotted accordingly.
While fan campaigns are now underway to save Wheel of Time (read more about that on Nerdist), maybe the best case scenario would be a made-for-Amazon movie. Another Prime Video show that's meeting an early end for entirely different reasons—Good Omens—is getting a send-off movie in place of a third season, wrapping up that show's own tantalizing cliffhangers.
With a fourth season apparently relegated forever to Tel'aran'rhiod, The Wheel of Time's slippery dream world, would it be too much to ask for, say, one more jumbo-sized episode to craft a satisfying conclusion? Especially for fans who invested time and emotions into the three existing seasons?
Of course it would be. At least you can always pick up Jordan's books and find out how the author envisioned the Last Battle—then stick around to dive deeper into the world the show, after just three seasons, has sadly left behind.
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