Wheel of Time (Amazon)

I dunno why

GOT is basically Fantasy for 18+

Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings, (well the books) are really 12+ at worst. Completely different.

As someone else said the books are less complex than people have come to expect.

Maria Doyle Kennedy is in everything these days.

I enjoyed the opening 3 episodes.

Jeez, episode 1 was brilliant. I think there's been some deviations from the book, but if the rest of the season is this good, who cares.

Disclaimer I have only watched episode 1.

I went in totally blind enjoyed lord of the rings, loved a lot of game of thrones...the script in this...hmm...Rosamund Pike in particular does her best but it is kind of awful, some of the other actors are dreadful. It feels weirdly cheap in places bizarrely given the budget. I might watch one more but it needs to improve.

Big fan of the books really didn’t like the first episode.

Some pretty huge changes made to the book for no real reason. Lots of minors one which was to be expected.

The whole tone of the first episode was way off from the books.

I really didn’t want to like it, I got sucked into the negativity but it gets better each episode (albeit quiet slowly). As the main cast get stuck into their journeys, I appreciate seeing familiar faces.

Big improvements in second and third episodes after an opener that would definitely knock book readers off their blocks a little.

I know they can't include everything, but things like Tam/Rand's relationship are sore to miss. Compare their departure in the books with the show, Tam is practically waving him off as if he's away to Magaluf with the lads in the show.

The stuff at the inn really caught me off-guard, I thought it was done really well, until the somewhat chunky exposition at the end.

Have to say, I'm really feeling the actor playing Thom, he's a big gruffer than I anticipated, but had a great presence.

I watched the first 3 episodes there. Mixed feelings. Nynaeve seems to be well cast, along with Moraine and Lan.

However I have issues with the rest of the main gang. Mat is one of the best fantasy characters ever written, a true rogue and chancer with fantastic wit but here he just comes across like a miserable, whiney waster. Perrin is another misery guts in this adaptation and it's compounded by the actors complete inability to act. He's sub Fair City. Rand isn't much better.

The first episode seemed very rushed and badly paced but it has settled a bit. I guess I'm holding out and hoping that it continues to improve and I warm a bit more to the cast. I really believe that despite the novels being a bit drawn out the story is one hell of a journey. So long as they don't make a complete balls of it

Not sure how Perrin could anything but at the moment. How do I add spoiler alerts here

I kind of like that they aren't afraid to chop and change the story a bit if it works, should hopefully be a good thing if they get into the later books and they trim back or rearrange the story a bit to improve the pacing

I'm not sure they tied the different pieces together in these episodes in a way that explains the concepts well enough though, kind of feels like they edited it a bunch after the fact

Maybe they'll add more detail as they go and they are just trying to introduce things so we have reference to them or something but seems a bit thin at the minute

Having said that though I enjoyed it so far, hopefully it picks up a bit.

Completely forgot this was a weekly thing as well

The first episode is really terrible and the changes they made make absolutely no sense.

Firstly - the concept of the Dragon Reborn possibly being a woman completely undermines the entire reason for the Aes Sedai to be fearful of the Dragon. It takes a ton of Moiraine's story and motivation away. Literally only done for the sake of inclusion and representation - even though females are so well represented anyway in this series. Absolute muck.

Secondly - The 'rumour' of 4 Ta'veren in the Two Rivers is such an insanely stupid line that I cannot believe it made it into the show. How would anybody know what that is? How would people have known what to look out for? Why have they added another one?

Thirdly - The addition of Perrin's new wife and her fate is such a bizarre storyline which achieved nothing.

The editing was horrific, no scene had any time to breathe. The direction the same. Amateur hour stuff really - the trolloc invasion was a total mess.

I have heard it improves but the first episode was so frustratingly bad that it has certainly taken a lot of the goodwill that I might have had away.

Yeah everyone in the Two Rivers has the same ethnicity (white with maybe a slight tan, with darker hair and eyes - think Spain) and it's a plot point how Rand looks slightly different to the rest of them (very pale with red hair - Irish basically). It becomes more important later.

Funnily enough there are a fairly important group who turn up later who have a lot of black characters. And other groups who are mostly Asian - important characters from those ethnicities do end up being relevant later.

But in this show things like that need to be ignored for representation and diversity - because that's more important than giving an authentic representation of the source material.

For a global TV audience it can't be as undiversified as the books. I get that. But they should have made them dress similarly or something. Scfi shows manage it.

I think they are going to do so. Thom mentioned it

There is a few distinctive races of people, I agree. If the entire world of the tv show is all the same level of diversity, you might have a point. We have no proof it is yet though.

As they go to say, those actors don't even match the physical traits of the characters in the books.