On 4/29/2024 at 7:35 AM, king of nowhere said:

I'm concerned about the lack of news about season 4. if they want to air a season before greenlighting the next one, they won't be able to launch more than one season every 2 years. which is way too slow

If they follow their previous patterns we might hear about Season 4 in June/July.  At least according to the people on twitter who track these types of things.

7 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

they are still filming?
too slow pacing. they will never get 8 seasons at this rate. I bet it will be canceled between seasons 3 and 5

I believe filming on Season 3 completed in late March.  This is just a casting discovery.

3 hours ago, Jaccsen said:

 

To be fair, I think that is the implication and most contracts do carry those types of clauses to prevent people from damaging the product. 

The unfortunate thing about that implication is that the only negative things the person in question says can be truthful.  Anything positive or neutral becomes contractually obligated.

17 hours ago, expat said:

 

Off topic - I've never understood why anyone suggests that Henry Cavill is a good actor.  He is the most wooden major actor I've ever seen and wouldn't cast him in anything above a local theater production.  After saying that, he works in Witcher since Geralt is supposed to be a non-emotive, wooden character, the perfect role for him.  

Great post and agree with everything except this.  I find Cavill to be a solid actor who is often given wooden roles.  Man from U.N.C.LE while being a ok film does show some of his range

14 hours ago, Kevin Ray said:

I came to say this very thing.  I've never been a joiner in the WoT online community.  I picked up WoT when book one came out and have re-read the entire series every time a new book was released.  I have listened to the audio books a few times as well.  I have been a long-standing fan of the series since its inception.  Years ago, there were teasing's of a series, but it never came to pass.  However, when this started to come about, I was absolutely ecstatic.  I waited with bated breath for the first episode and was sorely disappointed from episode 1.  The cast is horrible; the script writing is pathetic; the character development is abysmal; the acting is mediocre at best; the sceanery is crowded; and the series itself is rushed to conclusions.  I think Amazon decided to do this as cheaply as they could and refused good production studios in favor of cheap ones.  As a result, this garbage was produced.  I wish I could apologize to Robert Jordan for the hatchet job these people did to the beloved story he produced and touched so many people with.

It does really suck when something you are excited for doesn't meet your expectations.

And while I agree that the script writing and direction needs some solid improvement I find the casting and acting to be just a joy to see on screen.

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

yes, i do agree that those dialogues should have been included, as they were important.

i still think, though, that major changes would have been inevitable anyway. the things you mention would have helped, but they can only go so far. and when condensing the plot, you can't just cut out parts, you have to create something new to move the characters in the same way but less screen time.

finally, some parts of the books needed changes because they were genuinely bad. yes, i am looking specifically at the end of book 1. as poorly as it was performed in the first season, it's probably still an improvement over the book. making people in relationship not seem insane is another step up.

Agreed on the relationship part.  Fleshing out Nynaeve and Lan's courtship was a welcome change.  Not that it didn't make sense in the books considering the reader primarily has Rands PoV and he doesn't pick up on it doesn't mean it wasn't there.  Similar to how characters only see Lan as stoic brickface as we generally get the PoV of the 4 out of 5 of the E5 that he presents that as.  The few times we just get Lan/Moiraine or Lan/Nynaeve we tend to see a more emotional side of him.

19 hours ago, Cipher said:

I think this show is going to canned after the 3rd season.

 

The green light for season 4 is already being teased.  Nothing official but we should know in the next 2-3 months based off of their previous announcements.

Considering we are going to see Perrin with the Tinkers in season 3 I think we will get more of his struggle with the way of the leaf.  Possibly more with Elyas, I am unsure if he is expected in season 3.

EDIT

I should say presumed seeing more scenes with Perrin and the Tinkers.  The actors for Illya, Raen and Aram are suppose to be in season 3 so I would expect them to be in Perrins storyline.

Not sure where people have their sources for this type of information But I found this on twitter.  Apologies if not accurate.

8 hours ago, Elendir said:

 

The first meeting of Dragon and Amyrlin seat:

 

Book:

Show stubborn dragon who don't kneel before stronger opponent.

 

TV show:

Dragon kneeling in front of Amrylin would kneel in front of far stronger Forsakens. Very bad for champion of light.

 

And that is just the more impactful change of this scenes. It change other aspects of story too, like Siuan character.

While Rand didn't kneel in his first meeting with the Amrylin his entire outward facade crumbled, he possibly lost the void as well, when Suian names he The Dragon Reborn.  He then reverts to the nervous shepard asking meekly what they are going to do with him.

Not all that different from what we saw on screen.  Rand, having never been cut off from the source, loses his outward facade when he loses access to the One Power.  Remember that it is suppose to be a terrible feeling to lose that.

Now would I have directed the scene differently, sure.  i didn't care for having Rand fall to his knees.  But it works for an audience who don't yet fully understand what losing the source means.

23 hours ago, mogi68 said:

WARNING: SPOILERS for the whole series

 

What will happen in Season 3? I think that these things are reasonable to assume:

1.  Nynaeve, Elayne, and Mat in Tanchico. Find ter'angreal stash with the bowl of the winds (domination band maybe?). Nynaeve overcomes her block, gains a nemesis in Moghedien

2. Rand is in the waste. He does the Rhuidean thing, gets the majority of the Aiel on his side, defeats one of the male forsaken.

3. Siuan is deposed. 

4. Perrin returns to the Two Rivers and defends it from Shadowspawn and Whitecloaks. He meets Faile, who intended on hunting for the horn in Manetheren.

 

What happens next in a potential Season 4? Cairhien is not at civil war in the show and has a stable government (as of the end of S2). Caemlyn has not yet made an appearance, but apparently Morgase has been cast for S3 so we should see it at some point. Sammael has apparently been cast. Is he Lord Brend in this universe? Or does he take the role of Rahvin? I think that Rand will take the Aiel over the Dragonwall early in season 4 and either take the Stone of Tear or conquer Cairhien. 

 

Will Egwene be in the waste? She really doesn't "do" a lot in the Shadow Rising besides tag along. We know that she is Rafe's favorite character, and her storyline is often prioritized by the writers. Could it be possible that she will be involved in the tower storyline in Season 3?

 

Unknowns:

What is going on with the Dark One? Is he bound by seals as in the books? The ones keeping the Forsaken imprisoned were all destroyed by Ishamael at the end of season 2.

I think this is a pretty solid assumption as to how season 3 might play out.  I hope Egwene's story will focus on her dreaming abilites this season.  As for Cairhien's government I think it could be toppled fairly easily.  Either rumors that the Queen was to wed a Darkfriend or both the Queen and her former soon-to-be-king are assassinated by Liandrin/Black Ajah to prevent word of their involvement from leaking.

Good question on the Dark One, they have not been much of a presence with the story focusing so much on the Forsaken.  I don't really have a clear idea of how they will play out their impending release.

10 hours ago, Figs and Mice said:

                       

But where I do feel a bit let down is in the weakness of some of the writing. The ending for the first season was awful - as I think even the supporters of the show concede. COVID alibi , yeah. And to be fair the book ending of EOTW was a bit messy so again , difficult to get right. But honestly Tarwin's Gap just looked silly - they'd have been better off leaving it off screen altogether and just reporting some version of events back in the city from returning troops. As for :" she has a tell" - oh please ! And the need for confecting some kind of unrequited love triangle among the EF five ? Just poor...but not enough to stop me returning for season two.

 

And honestly , second season much better, Plenty of divergence from the books , some flat bits - but generally pretty good I thought.  Until the end ... and then once again they made a pigs breakfast of the final scenes. With all the CGI ability they have , why reduce the battle for Falme to a lot of hand to hand street fighting , with the Heroes of the Horn (who had scant introduction) merely beating up a couple of dozen Seanchan guards ?  And then (over)compensate for spectacle by having Moiraine almost casually wipe out the entire invading fleet with a few fireballs...I mean , who needs The Dragon ?  And while the subtlety of Ishy basically letting Rand stab him - while rather early in the story ! - has some appeal , it made for a rather limp finish. Some people claim they are happy with all that but I reckon it rather spoiled what had been a hugely improved effort for seven episodes.

 

 

Spot on analysis.  I really liked the ending of season 1, at least the stuff that happened at the Eye with Rand, Moiraine and Ishy. This part of the ending feels like it will come full circle if we make it to the end of the series.

It sucks that Daniel Henney's part had to be cut down majorly due to other filming commitments from what I understand and losing whatever the original story Mat and Perrin would have gone through.  But yeah everything to do with Tarwins Gap was just underwhelming at best.

Does Moiraine not surprise attack Be'lal with balefire in tDR?  If the forsaken didn't count in the 3 oaths she wouldn't have been able to attack like that.

I might be mis-remembering the scene though.

12 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

And yet, if you actually watch the show, it becomes clear that the Aes Sedai have it all wrong by thinking that. The opening narration is wrong because the narrator is unreliable. 

Characters in WoT stating things as fact when they have imperfect information, that could never happen 😉

11 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

You’re correct. I was mixing up that number with 2 million which was mentioned earlier. 
 

Even so, that six million is only over the three months following the full release. That doesn’t include the numbers during the actual run of season 2.

 

There was only one week where viewership dropped below 80M minutes, and that was the week of Thanksgiving. That means you’re getting the equivalent of 5 million series views per week. Even if you say 10% of that figure is repeat viewers (which I think is way too high), that’s still 4 million new viewers per week. 
 

And that’s just in the US. That really can’t  be considered a “failure”. 

No one can say for certain aside from Amazon but those do seem like solid numbers following the end of the season.  And the show does seem to have a larger following outside the US from the numbers I have seen.  Not sure how Amazon weighs that type of information.

4 hours ago, DojoToad said:

I was just getting ready to stream 'The Office' on Peacock last night.  Five minutes in  - commercial.  A few minutes after that - 90 second commercial.  Done.  I've already seen all the episodes without ads, not going to sit through them with ads.  I too grew up watching ads growing up but have now been too spoiled by the streaming age.  I can't go back and don't watch network TV anymore.

 

I never see an ad when reading, running, working on hobbies or playing a video game.  Sorry to see Amazon is going this way.  The glowing screen will be seeing me a lot less - except for video games, of course 😁

This was in peacock?  When Amazon was announcing ads I assumed they would be preroll ads which I wouldn't have a major issue with.  Otherwise I kinda agree with you, if ads start appearing in the middle of my shows then I am going to be cutting back on my streaming services.

This was a wonderful article and interview.  It is nice to see WoT getting noticed aside from what I would call "the regular" sites.

https://defector.com/how-the-wheel-of-time-made-great-art-out-of-great-pain

14 hours ago, 4gottenwarder47 said:

I just finished season 2, it's been a rollercoaster. So much is wrong, but... I loved it, I literally cried, to see the story I've loved for so long, finally, on TV. I've waited, from the beginning for this. It was broken, but... Beautiful!

Solid description.

I just love seeing the story and characters that I have loved come to screen,

1 hour ago, Rhaze said:

 Yet they did it with Egwene and Nynaeve. Egwene literally healed a husk of a shell of a burned out Nynaeve and then went back to novice. Nynaeve pulled galaxies together and bubble healed an entire room and then back to struggling. But hey we cant let Rand show any power, he is only the Dragon Reborn.

Rand broke cuendillar, something we have only seen Ishy do.

Gotta say my main fan cast for Cadsaune was Shohreh Aghdashloo after seeing the first season of the Expanse.  I do think she will make a wonder Elaida, certainly think she will love taking centre stage and chew the scenery that the role should hopefully involve.

Previous to Shohreh I flip flopped between Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith.

Great video here by Nae'blis.  He talks about being taken out to Prague to tour Jordan studios and other BTS set locations.  It is really interesting when he talks about the restrictions, or lack there of, that Amazon had for them especially concerning the ongoing strike.

Don't know why but when they showed the Tar Valon set it kinda broke my brain.  I knew they built a large set but I didn't imagine it to be so continuous.

2 hours ago, Rhaze said:

Yep... "if we had 2 more episodes we could have flushed out what the Horn really is and how important it is"...

 

meanwhile Rafe gets 2 more episodes and we get to see Lan taking a dump while talking to Alanna.

So very important that it disappears for 12 books.

1 hour ago, Mirefox said:

Except Moiraine witnessed the scene.  Liandrin couldn’t be lying in this scene or Moiriane would have identified her as black.

I doubt Moiraine could have heard Liandrin from the cliff overlooking the event

3 hours ago, Scarloc99 said:

There is no “Liandrin being a secret” now, everyone knows 

Everyone as in the audience?  Or everyone as in our heros?  Because aside from Verin no one in the White Tower suspects Liandrin and it is possible our heros never return there until much later. 

Oh sure, Anvaere knows but who is going to trust the head of a disgraced house.  One whose own son is a Darkfriend.

17 hours ago, Berty1102 said:

This whole show is a train wreck if you know and loved the books. They could have done a season for each book and have enough for at least 10 episodes. It’s bad and I’ve told everyone to watch the show if you are thinking of reading the books. Love the books and the characters from them and how they grow and change but the show has basically kept their names and nothing else. 

Agreed, more seasons and more episodes would be wonderful but unfortunately those are not on the table at this time.  I do disagree that doing a season a book would be a good idea, there are a fair amount of content that can be condensed or merged into other plots.

But it sucks that you didn't enjoy what was on screen, it is never fun to be disappointed. But there is more to the show that simply keeping the names the same. The show hasn't exactly had time to show the growth and change that happens throughout the series.  I can see the seeds of growth for some characters and for others they are already starting to bloom.