The Show Has Been Cancelled

[Elder_Haman]

Looks like the haters got their wish:

 

https://deadline.com/2025/05/the-wheel-of-time-canceled-prime-video-1236409657/

[Ithillian Turambar]

Well that sucks

[Guire]

7 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

Looks like the haters got their wish:

 

https://deadline.com/2025/05/the-wheel-of-time-canceled-prime-video-1236409657/

Sorry for the show fans.

[Kaleb]

blood and bloody ashes

[randduran]

Ah man...I was just getting emotionally invested into it too (seasons 1 and 2 were bleh for me but 3 really started hitting some good notes).

 

Oh well. Sounds like the cast and crew sort of saw the writing on the wall on this one as it came out that Rosamund who had moved her family all out to Prague/Czech had moved back after wrapping season 3..

 

still... I was hopeful until now. Thanks for sharing the news!

[Aarongallagher1973]

So many fervent book fans could not handle the changes.  I would love to see any of them try to make a 6,7 or max 8 seasons with the episode number restriction imposed by Amazon and then see what sacrifices they would make to try to maintain a sense of continuity with cut characters.  Can't pay all actors to be in whole series of so many seasons.

 

It was a more than valiant effort by all.

[Flamen]

Cancelled due to low viewership. Another example of showrunner/writer's room who dislike the source material and end up introducing changes that contradict character development, themes, and narrative. 

 

 

[divica]

21 minutes ago, Aarongallagher1973 said:

So many fervent book fans could not handle the changes.  I would love to see any of them try to make a 6,7 or max 8 seasons with the episode number restriction imposed by Amazon and then see what sacrifices they would make to try to maintain a sense of continuity with cut characters.  Can't pay all actors to be in whole series of so many seasons.

 

It was a more than valiant effort by all.

this is just not true. the show failed because of its awfull  1st season with several changes that made no sense and contradicted the information from the books.

 

the show didn't try to be a simpler version of the books. it tried to be an improved version of the books where they could introduce a woke agenda a change the main characters of the books. 

[Kaleb]

21 minutes ago, Flamen said:

Cancelled due to low viewership. Another example of showrunner/writer's room who dislike the source material and end up introducing changes that contradict character development, themes, and narrative. 

Rafe and many of his team have a documented and obvious deep love of the series, and I'm so irritated with this slander. They read the same books as you and many of the "contradictions" are things long-time readers have also understood in the text of the books. There are choices they made that other teams wouldn't have - which is a simple fact of any adaptation - but they made them based on telling Robert Jordan's story as they sincerely understood it.

Edited May 23 by Kaleb

[Brycc alThyran]

The Yellow's are hosting several threads for mental health awareness month if anyone needs to head over for some emotional support 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

4 minutes ago, Kaleb said:

Rafe and many of his team have a documented and obvious deep love of the series, and I'm so irritated with this slander. They read the same books as you and many of the "contradictions" are things long-time readers have also understood in the text of the books. There are choices they made that other teams wouldn't have - which is a simple fact of any adaptation - but they made them based on telling Robert Jordan's story as they sincerely understood it.

I must say I'm with you on this. One of the things I find most funny about it all is how people constantly complain about Rafe making a big deal out of his favourite character Egwene. And so often this is followed up by something like "if I had my way, it would all be about Mat!". Yeah, cos true fans don't have favourite characters, lol.

 

It is a real shame, a real shame. Definitely the first season could have been better, better choices could have been made throughout the show, but I am really disappointed.

 

And this is the opinion of a fervent fan of the books for his entire adult life. 

[divica]

10 minutes ago, Kaleb said:

Rafe and many of his team have a documented and obvious deep love of the series, and I'm so irritated with this slander. They read the same books as you and many of the "contradictions" are things long-time readers have also understood in the text of the books. There are choices they made that other teams wouldn't have - which is a simple fact of any adaptation - but they made them based on telling Robert Jordan's story as they sincerely understood it.

robert jordan clearly intended for people to think that the dragon could be either a man or a woman.

or having nyn bring people back from the dead

or making rand a background character in the first book...

[fearbrog]

Books took singular POV and expanded into big beautiful story. But Rafe couldn't let his favourite character be second fiddle to some guy so made complex multi-POV from the get-go, oh well. We didn't get Tarwin's gap, we didn't get battle in the sky. Like hell show wouldn't keep sidelining Rand

[divica]

1 minute ago, fearbrog said:

Books took singular POV and expanded into big beautiful story. But Rafe couldn't let his favourite character be second fiddle to some guy so made complex multi-POV from the get-go, oh well. We didn't get Tarwin's gap, we didn't get battle in the sky. Like hell show wouldn't keep sidelining Rand

I don't get why people even try to refute this.

 

hell, if the goal is to condense the story then the last thing that any sane person should have done is to cast rosamund pike and make her the main character instead of focusing as much as possible on rand, mat, perrin and eg... Even if she is an amazing actress or whatever casting her was the first step to doom the show.

[Tephulis]

1 hour ago, Kaleb said:

Rafe and many of his team have a documented and obvious deep love of the series, and I'm so irritated with this slander. They read the same books as you and many of the "contradictions" are things long-time readers have also understood in the text of the books. There are choices they made that other teams wouldn't have - which is a simple fact of any adaptation - but they made them based on telling Robert Jordan's story as they sincerely understood it.

So when were Rand's 3 love interests supposed to start?  Seems like they were making changes, not adaptations. I could go on & on...

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

While it appears we will never know what they intended with Min, a more equal polyamorous relationship with Aviendha and Elayne seemed fairly well underway.

[Turin Turambar]

I'm bummed that it got cancelled. I liked the show for its own thing. There were things I didn't love but it was very nice to see some of the things I always envisioned in my head. Seeing some things on screen that took place in the background in the books was interesting as well.

 

I will look forward to seeing these actors in other roles. They are now part of my Wheel of Time team.

 

Weep for Manetheren

[Sabio]

1 hour ago, fearbrog said:

Books took singular POV and expanded into big beautiful story. But Rafe couldn't let his favourite character be second fiddle to some guy so made complex multi-POV from the get-go, oh well. We didn't get Tarwin's gap, we didn't get battle in the sky. Like hell show wouldn't keep sidelining Rand

In the shows defense, COVID killed Tarwin's gap.  Rafe even said COVID restrictions made the original idea impossible.

Edited May 23 by Sabio

[Sabio]

This isn't about if Rafe and the writers loved WOT or not.  What the show suffered from wasn't Rafe not liking it.  The CGI was bad, the pacing was poor, too many poor episodes, and too many changes were made that weren't needed.  I understand changes were needed to speed things along and give some backstories to people.  Season 1 you spend an episode on a warder just to kill him at the end, wasted time.   WOT will go down for me as a good, not great series where there isn't a strong desire to watch it again.  I just don't think the series could recover from the first two so so seasons. I think episode 8 of season 3 summed things up for me.  You had some great moments and seeing the start of Rands madness then gives us Lanfear vs Moiraine dud of a fight where Lanfear flees after having her throat cut.

 

I wonder if Rafe will ever say who the final forsaken was suppose to be.

Edited May 23 by Sabio

[Jaysen Gore]

I feel sorry for the true fans of the show, and for the rest of us who had new WoT Content to debate and discuss and speculate about, on this forum and elsewhere.

 

I am somewhat surprised, mainly since the streaming services never struck me as particularly money smart. But in a lot of ways, this was doomed by a reverse slog - instead of being good through great with a slog in the middle, the slog on this one is right up front, and the show never really recovered.

 

There's no point in pointing the finger at any one thing in particular - the pandemic, the actor switch, the lack of financial and time commitment, Rafe's personal agenda, the basic Hollywood disdain for genre heroic fiction, the impossibility of satisfying the core audience, too complicated a world to make clear for a new audience, the author's over reliance on similar concepts from recent classics (LoTR, Dune), the fact that it wasn't similar enough to others (GoT), Trump's external production tariffs,  None of which changes the fact that if it were better, it would have survived, but it didn't.

 

In my 50 years of life, I can count the number of genre projects that caught the popular zeitgeist on one hand (Star Wars 4-6, LoTR, Matrix 1, GoT 1-4, MCU Phase 1-3) and maybe another handful that were both critically great  in spots and commercially successful (Jurassic Park, BSG, Buffy, Deadpool, the Expanse, some Star Trek, others) But history is full of failed projects that didn't land right, or didn't find an audience; shows with interesting premises that weren't given time to grow; shows that exceeded the abilities of their talent to deliver. Shows that had a good idea that couldn't sustain a movie, let alone a series.

 

thanks to the community for sometimes making the site sometimes more enjoyable that the show, and to the moderators for keeping it going. 

 

now we wait for the next turning of the wheel, and enjoy the books whenever we want.

[DigificWriter]

The cancellation bums me out, but what I'm truly mourning is the loss of the community that I became a part of as a result of its existence because, as a Show-Only fan, I've got no real incentive to stay engaged with the fandom.

[Sabio]

As good as the WOT is I do think the biggest issue is not everything lends itself well to being a movie/series.  In the book there is a lot you can describe how the power works, inner dialogue, AOL, backstories, heroes of the horn, etc.  So much the show simply didn't have time to cover or explain.  It could be as good as WOT is that it just was never going to make a good series for TV.  My wife never read the series and was totally confused at the end of season 2 why these ghosts were important.  Unlike GOT, RJ never made WOT thinking it will be on TV someday.  

[Tephulis]

7 minutes ago, DigificWriter said:

The cancellation bums me out, but what I'm truly mourning is the loss of the community that I became a part of as a result of its existence because, as a Show-Only fan, I've got no real incentive to stay engaged with the fandom.

Try the audiobooks.  Listen to them while cooking, dishes, other chores, and if you are lucky, while at work.  Like all adaptations, you are really missing out not checking out the source material.  This will always rank in my top 5 all time fantasy series, and am planning my 7th re-listen.  Plus, you really need to see how they get to the end!

 

I think they just re-recorded the audiobooks with Rosamund Pike as the narrator

Edited May 23 by Tephulis

[fearbrog]

17 minutes ago, Sabio said:

In the shows defense, COVID killed Tarwin's gap.  Rafe even said COVID restrictions made the original idea impossible.

That's simply not true. Covid prevented Egg and Nyn interacting and as a result made way to super healing-resurrection. Rand was sidelined way before because showrunner admitted he can't get all spotlight and girls MUST do something. If anything book ending would work better during COVID.  It's one Rand in blue screen versus 5 women.

[DigificWriter]

4 minutes ago, Tephulis said:

Try the audiobooks.  Listen to them while cooking, dishes, other chores, and if you are lucky, while at work.  Like all adaptations, you are really missing out not checking out the source material.  This will always rank in my top 5 all time fantasy series, and am planning my 7th re-listen.  Plus, you really need to see how they get to the end!

 

I think they just re-recorded the audiobooks with Rosamund Pike as the narrator

 

I was a Show-Only fan because i loved the show but hated the books.