In a way, storytelling is The Wheel of Time’s biggest storytelling problem.
The world Rafe Judkins has brought to the screen feels boundless, replete with different cultures and subcultures, sects and sub-sects, thousands upon thousands of years of history, of wars won and lost, kingdoms risen and fallen, songs and languages learned and forgotten and learned again. (Dip your toe in the book series’ wiki, I double-dog dare you — you might fall in and never come out again.) From an epic-fantasy perspective, this is an impressive feat.
However, from the perspective of a television drama, it’s almost an obstacle because virtually every new development requires someone to tell someone else a story about it. Every time a character sees another character praying, a conversation must ensue as to what the prayer means and to which deity or ancestor or metaphysical concept it’s directed. Each time a phrase from a lost language is uttered, someone has to explain what it means, who originally said it, and what context it was said. Each new enemy requires one of the heroes to tell one of the others what the enemy is and what its powers might be, and how best to defeat or defend against it. And so on, and so on, and so on, for fifteen novels and however many seasons of those novels’ adaptations Amazon deigns to make.
In short, The Wheel of Time is a show that’s almost all fantasy worldbuilding, at least so far. If you’re a mark for that sort of thing — as, frankly, I am — then hey, great! Worldbuilding out the wazoo!
If you’re not into it, though, hoo boy, I can imagine this is quite a slog. For every recognizable moment of human connection — Rand struggling to communicate to his best friend Mat that he doesn’t need to keep any secrets, Nynaeve’s raised-eyebrow reaction to the polyamorous lifestyle of some of the Aes Sedai — there’s great gobs of exposition about the Way of the Leaf or the Song before the Breaking or the Kingdom of Minethrin or the will of the Amyrlin Seat or what have you.
To paraphrase I Think You Should Leave, suffice to say, The Wheel of Time is a lot.
I reviewed this week’s episode of The Wheel of Time for Vulture.
Tags: fantasy, reviews, the wheel of time, TV, TV reviews, vulture