The Show Has Been Cancelled

[Tephulis]

ok, gotcha

[WheelofJuke]

The show just wasn't very good. 

Sorry. 

 

[divica]

I am kind of surprised that rafe and the writers are getting some support instead of serious hate.

It seems clear that most people agree that the show is being cancelled because of season 1 and rafe and his team are the only culprits of a series of really bad choices that ended up dooming the series.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

7 minutes ago, divica said:

I am kind of surprised that rafe and the writers are getting some support instead of serious hate.

It seems clear that most people agree that the show is being cancelled because of season 1 and rafe and his team are the only culprits of a series of really bad choices that ended up dooming the series.

 

"It seems clear" that some people are keen on handing out personal insults without any knowledge of what was actually involved in making the series. "Most people agree" with you? Really? How did you come to this realisation?

[Turin Turambar]

I think the reason that season 1 and season 2 finales were different is due to cost. In order to film those things the way described in the books would take Marvel money. They just didn't have that. I felt they did a pretty good job of info dumping in short scenes but they really needed more Thom to try to get into the Horn and the Heroes, but the Rand/Mat trip through Camlyn (sp??) was cut probably for both time and cost.

 

[Babbus]

Absolutely stoked on this news. Sucks to hate on a thing with the name of something I love, but this was a twisted and stupid version of it. Glad the broader human society agrees. Things like this restore faith, incrementally true, but we need to start stacking them

[Elder_Haman]

3 minutes ago, Babbus said:

Glad the broader human society agrees.

There is absolutely no evidence supporting this statement. 
 

The issue was money. That’s it. 

[Ryrin]

5 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Looks like the haters got their wish:

 

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

I didn’t watch the show past season one because I didn’t like it. I’m not a “hater.”

[Elder_Haman]

8 minutes ago, Ryrin said:

I didn’t watch the show past season one because I didn’t like it. I’m not a “hater.”

Cool. Didn’t say you were. 

[zacz1987]

I hope this opens up the possibility of an animated series in a few years that is more book accurate.

[Blueberry]

How unfortunate 😞 I was really enjoying the third season. There was some changes and from the writing team but a lot of work and love was put into the project, I was so curious how they'd approach the break in the towers. 

 

I hope it can get picked up elsewhere, I think an animated project was already turned down long ago because they wanted to keep it to the first 3 books. 

[Flamen]

The failure of Wheel of Time and Rings of Power can be traced back to Jennifer Salke who has already been fired. She hired those unexperienced activist showrunners. In general, Amazon has made some good shows like The Boys, Reacher, Bosch, Invincible, Fallout.

[Skipp]

Absolute shame to see the show end so early.

 

It has been an amazing few years getting back into the fandom.  Coming to these forums, reddit, youtube just to theorize and examine every detail we could come across.  Geeking out with the fandom was just the best.

 

This show gave me an incredible amount of excitement in the lead up to each season.  The show was just such a joy to watch and experience.  It was neat getting to "re-experience" the books I love so much in a different medium.

 

I don't imagine I will be around much but I had so much fun experiencing the show with many of you.

[Mirefox]

5 hours 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.

When you love something, you don’t fundamentally change it to conform to your vision; you embrace what (or who) it is.  You don’t say “I like this thing, but I can improve it;” You don’t say, “I love this thing but we need to change it to fit with modern (read: my) worldviews.”

 

Rafe “loved” this series for marketing reasons only and nothing anyone says can convince me otherwise because the product spoke for itself.

[Elder_Haman]

5 minutes ago, Mirefox said:

When you love something, you don’t fundamentally change it to conform to your vision;

This is a pretty limited way of thinking about a series like the Wheel of Time. It’s so vast that many people love certain aspects and dislike others. 
 

I have no doubt that Rafe loves the Wheel of Time. And I have no doubt that you do as well. It’s just that you each love it for vastly different reasons. 

[Mirefox]

10 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

This is a pretty limited way of thinking about a series like the Wheel of Time. It’s so vast that many people love certain aspects and dislike others. 
 

I have no doubt that Rafe loves the Wheel of Time. And I have no doubt that you do as well. It’s just that you each love it for vastly different reasons. 

You’re right.  I love it for its characters, setting, and plot.  Rafe loved it as a vehicle to tell his own story and hopefully become famous.

[Elder_Haman]

Just now, Mirefox said:

You’re right.  I love it for its characters, setting, and plot.  Rafe loved it as a vehicle to tell his own story and hopefully become famous.

I don’t understand the need to hate on people or exult in others’ failures. It’s a very petty mindset. 

[Blueberry]

I'm seeing a lot of people talking on tiktok, theres videos of people with lots of views and likes already on the subject. Seems people were smitten with the last season and are feverishly tagging streaming services and posting to get attention on the show 😮

Edited May 24 by Blueberry

[Yamezt]

It's a shame - good bye WoT again

[Sabio]

I think a lot comes down to simple money, $250 million for the rights, something like $256 million for the first two seasons.  What people forget is for a streaming service viewership might be good but what they need is new subscribers. Not sure Prime has released any of those numbers.   If subscribers weren't coming, then Prime would be wanting to pay less for new seasons.    

Edited May 24 by Sabio

[fearbrog]

1 hour ago, Elder_Haman said:

It’s so vast that many people love certain aspects and dislike others. 

I have no doubt that Rafe loves the Wheel of Time. 

But aspect of the story Rafe clearly disliked is THE main character. From the start he needed to elevate Egwene (his favourite character) and Moiraine (biggest star and producer), so he didn't see anything wrong with making Rand as unimpressive as possible. This couldn't end any different

[Elder_Haman]

6 minutes ago, fearbrog said:

But aspect of the story Rafe clearly disliked is THE main character. From the start he needed to elevate Egwene (his favourite character) and Moiraine (biggest star and producer), so he didn't see anything wrong with making Rand as unimpressive as possible. This couldn't end any different

I agree that he favored Egwene. I do not believe that he “made Rand as unimpressive as possible”. I quite liked Rand, thought Josha was an amazing actor, and felt that Rand’s arc was very well done. 

[Knoell]

As someone who loves the books with all my heart, I could not watch past season 1. The choices surrounding mat and Perrins starts were almost enough to put me off right there. 

 

The show runner often complained of not being able to fit the story into 8 episodes and cut significant story arcs for that reason but had no problem adding additional story arcs that were nonsensical and clashed with established character arcs and planned development. You lose existing fans right there. 

 

But I guess you say who cares, you'll never "satisfy" existing fans right? Wrong but how are you going to win over new fans on a series like this unless you can write better than Robert Jordan and clearly you could not 

 

I'm with the person that said maybe we will get an animated show at some point that can explore the story arcs the way Robert Jordan intended instead of thinking they can tell a shell of the story their own way.

 

Between this show and the Halo debacle I'm gutted it turned out this way for both.

Edited May 24 by Knoell

[Sabio]

47 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

I agree that he favored Egwene. I do not believe that he “made Rand as unimpressive as possible”. I quite liked Rand, thought Josha was an amazing actor, and felt that Rand’s arc was very well done. 

I will say the show did an amazing job at casting.  Season 3 was the best but according to the article "Season 3 ranks 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, up from 86% for Season 2 and 81% for Season 1. "3 was the best but a 97% and season 1 an 81%?  The horror of what they did to Mats dagger making it Lightsaber dagger alone should've dropped season 2 way below 86%,

Edited May 24 by Sabio

[Mailman]

10 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

Looks like the haters got their wish:

 

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

Looks like fans of quality adaptions, writing and television got their wish.

 

Ultimately a small dedicated hardcore fanbase who have inflated season 2 and 3's rating in excess of it's actual quality do not have the numbers to sustain the series going forward.

 

I am sorry to the fans of the show for who this has hit hard.