![]() ![]() ![]() A still from The Wheel of Time Amazon Prime Video Don’t do death scenes if you can’t follow through It felt like I got a huge build up and then hardly any payoff, which is disappointing, to say the least. I’m not demanding something on the order of the Battle of Helm’s Deep from The Two Towers, necessarily (which probably still stands as one of the most impressive battle scenes ever filmed), but something a little more than the Fal Darans shooting a few arrows out of a wall would have been nice. Yes, the bit with Nynaeve and Egwene and the other three channelers basically blowing up an entire army of Trollocs was very impressive-but it was also a letdown. (Not to mention that detailing all the ways in which the show has so far altered the canon material would be an entire essay in itself.) Look, you cannot promise a big climactic battle… and then not give me one Therefore I’m hesitant to criticize even the ones I feel were potentially catastrophic in their ripple effects on later plotlines, because it may be that the show had no choice in the matter. It is nearly impossible, as a result, to tell which deviations from the source material of the books in the last two episodes were deliberate, and which were driven by a lack of Mat. What I will note is that the sudden absence of such a central character for the climactic final episodes of the first season must have been a virtual body blow to the writers, in terms of making the story work. Personally, I feel like anything guarded that closely has to fall firmly in the realm of Not Our Business, so I will refrain from speculation on my own part. The cast and crew have been impressively tight-lipped about the reasons for Harris’ departure, and naturally, as a result, speculation has run rampant among WOT fans both new and old as to why exactly he left. From the way episode 6 “The Flame of Tar Valon” ended, with the rest of the characters proceeding into the Ways while Mat stays behind, and his complete absence from episode 7 and 8 (except for one very brief shot which looks like it could have been cobbled together from earlier footage), it seems clear that Harris did not return to the production after the first shutdown. It finally wrapped production in May 2021. The show briefly resumed shooting for the last two episodes of the season in late 2020, before being shut down again. ![]() But when COVID-19 struck, the production was shut down in March 2020. The Wheel of Time‘s Mat Cauthon problemīarney Harris was present to shoot the principal photography of the first six episodes of the season. Here’s what worked in The Wheel of Time, what didn’t quite land and what we might expect in season 2. A still from The Wheel of Time Jan Thijs-Amazon Prime Video Either way, it’s impossible to discuss the series’ issues without acknowledging the elephant in the room: the departure of Barney Harris, who played Mat Cauthon, and how that might have affected subsequent story decisions. Like many TV and film productions, The Wheel of Time was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which makes it difficult to determine which of the show’s flaws stem from that, or from within the show itself. Generally, there was a lot to love about The Wheel of Time adaptation -especially the pointed acknowledgement that not everyone in the world, even a fantasy world, is white, male and/or straight.īut there is also a lot not to love. Otherwise, lovely), and the effects were about a thousand times better than my growing-up-in-the-80s-and-90s self could have hoped for. I am amazed and thrilled this thing even exists.Īnd it was beautiful, for the most part! The cast and set design were gorgeous (though I have to confess the White Tower was a little squat-looking for my tastes. As a longtime fan of the books series, I was elated: seeing The Wheel of Time realized onscreen is something many of us have been awaiting for literal decades and thought would never actually happen. Warning: Spoilers ahead for the Amazon Prime Video series, The Wheel of TimeĪs this mostly crappy year comes to an increasingly crappy close, one of the rare high points in these Omicron times was getting to watch the finale to the first season of The Wheel of Time. ![]()
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