Once upon a time, HBO created a show called Game of Thrones. And even though it joined the ranks of beloved shows with endings everyone hated, it was so popular that a bunch of other networks tried to make their own high fantasy epics. HBO readied a Game of Thrones prequel series called House of the Dragon, Netflix picked up The Witcher, and Amazon Prime Video sunk money into two series: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time. The high fantasy war had begun!
Several years in, it’s pretty much over. The Witcher has become a hate watch for a lot of people, The Rings of Power has disappointed, and The Wheel of Time was canceled. That ones hurts the most, because The Wheel of Time was the best of them.
The Wheel of Time was getting better season after season
It was canceled at the top of its game
The Wheel of Time is based on a massive, 14-book series by author Robert Jordan. It tells a sprawling story, but at its center is a farmhand named Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) who discovers that he’s actually the chosen one destined to either save or destroy the world. He’s not happy about it.
As beloved as the book series is, The Wheel of Time doesn’t have as much name recognition as Game of Thrones, The Witcher, or The Lord of the Rings, so it came into this high fantasy fight as the underdog. The first season, which was filmed while the cast and crew were puzzling out how to deal with the early days of the COVID pandemic, is a bit rough around the edges, but the second is noticeably more confident and the third found an undeniable groove. Characters like the Aes Sedai sorceress Moiraine (Rosamund Pike, the biggest name in the cast) are fully formed, the action scenes are ambitious and spectacular, and showrunner Rafe Judkins finally gets to dig into the weirdest, most esoteric parts of the book series, which he does without apology or compromise. The third season of The Wheel of Time, which aired early this year, is the best fantasy TV to come out in the last several years.
So of course that’s when Amazon decided to cancel it. And while I know the company has to mind its bottom line, it backed itself into a corner here.
Amazon canceled the wrong high fantasy series
It should have been The Rings of Power
The Lord of the Rings is the most famous fantasy series in history, so it’s easy to understand why Amazon would want a piece of it. The company paid $250 million for the rights alone, and a lot more to make the first couple of seasons; at the time,The Rings of Powerwas the most expensive TV series ever made.
The investment has not paid off. The Rings of Power is a prequel series set thousands of years before the story of The Lord of the Rings most people know, and showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay had to invent a lot of new material to fill in the gaps in the mythology. A lot of that material has been prosaic and lackluster; it feels like Amazon decided it wanted a huge fantasy series, threw a ton of money at The Rings of Power, but didn’t spend much time thinking about what kind of show it should actually make. While regard for The Wheel of Time has gone up season after season, enthusiasm for The Rings of Power has waned.
And yet Amazon has ordered a third season of The Rings of Power. It feels like the sunk costs fallacy is at play here. Amazon initially committed to making five seasons, and according to MovieWeb, there’s a $20 million “kill fee” for every canceled season. Considering how much Amazon spent out of the gate, it may feel like it’s gone too far to come back now.
The Wheel of Time wasn’t as popular as The Rings of Power, but it also cost a lot less, was a lot better, and didn’t come with as many strings attached. I’ve enjoyed The Rings of Power for what it is, but if it came down to choosing between these two series, the right pick seems obvious to me.
Finished or not, The Wheel of Time is still a great watch
Although it’s painful to know it’ll never have a proper ending
The Wheel of Time show ended up adapting around four out of the 14 books, so it ended well short of the finish line. But it’s still worth watching both for book fans who get to see some of their favorite characters and set pieces come to life, and for newbies who get to discover a rich new fantasy world that’s never been exposed onscreen before. Even unfinished,The Wheel of Time show provides enough detail and depth to keep fantasy fans fascinated for a long time.
And it may lead them to the original books, which remain one of the most impressive epic fantasy series ever written. And if fans ever want someone else to take a crack at adapting The Wheel of Time, that’s essential. Maybe whoever does it next will realize what they have.
The Wheel of Time is a fallen soldier in the fantasy wars
With The Wheel of Time gone, The Rings of Power a dead show walking, and people blasting The Witcher online (although I think there’s reason to be excited for the newest season), it doesn’t look like anyone will inherit Game of Thrones’ crown as the next high fantasy phenomenon. The winner may end up being HBO once again, since House of the Dragon is still going reasonably strong, and a new Game of Thrones prequel called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms looks like it will help people fall in love with Westeros again.
So the high fantasy war was a bit of a bust, but at least we got shows like The Wheel of Time out of it.
- Release Date
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2021 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Rafe Judkins
- Directors
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Sanaa Hamri, Ciaran Donnelly, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Thomas Napper, Maja Vrvilo, Wayne Che Yip
- Writers
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Amanda Kate Shuman, Dave Hill, Rohit Kumar, Justine Juel Gillmer, Celine Song, Rammy Park, The Clarksons Twins, Katherine B. McKenna
