Exciting Look at The Wheel of Time TV series from Amazon Prime

As the premier of The Wheel of Time TV show comes closer, newly released images stir up some feelings of excitement.

It has been a little bit since my last blog post… about a month and a half. I’ve been busy. Hopefully the fruits of my labor will come to bear soon. In the meantime, something I am looking forward to, The Wheel of Time TV show, has had some major reveals recently. At the virtual SDCC last month, Amazon released a poster and the premier month (November) for the show. And just today, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly magazine, we were bombarded with several images from the show featuring the cast in full costume. And it is glorious.

Quick Analysis of Pics

The article is a good read and clearly intended for those unfamiliar with the series. Perhaps the most striking thing is the first image shown… the main cast all in a line and in full costume. At the center we see the character Moiraine (played by Oscar-nominated actress Rosemund Pike) flanked by her Warder al’Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney). Fanning out from them, you have the remaining cast members including (from left to right) Nynaeve (Zoë Robins) and Mat (Barney Harris) on the left and Egwene (Madeleine Madden), Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) and Rand (Josha Stradowski).

“Wheel of Time” S01_106_D04 – 6/28 – EXT MEADOW/WAYGATE MOIRAINE arrives at the Waygate, met by LOIAL. And all the other. Who is the Dragon?

My impressions of the cast are that they all look fantastic. I know some have complained about the costumes and how they don’t look medieval enough. However, I am fine with the clothing. The series is not set in our own history and, if anything, it is more closely related to the renaissance period as far as tech and fashion level. In any case, I love the looks of all of the characters and look forward to seeing more of them soon.

“Wheel of Time” S01_Ep103_D14 – 3/22 – EXT. CARALAIN PLAINS EGWENE and PERRIN see wagon tracks heading east, friend or foe?

Another image is that of the fearsome Logaine (Álvaro Morte) looking fierce while held in a cage with a couple of Aes Sedai (the magic users of the WoT world) looking over him. His expression is perfect as someone who is smug despite being held captive, while the two women immediately behind him, Aes Sedai Allana Mosvani (Priyanka Bose) and Kerene Nagashi (Clare Perkins) look on with a bit of concern. That picture certainly makes me look forward to seeing that scene play out on my TV Set.

Two other images included one of Rand and Egwene sitting together and one of Lan carrying Moiraine into a dark, forboding building. For those images, you can check out the article. The first image is sweet in its appearance and hints at chemistry between the two cast members. It will be interesting to see how that chemistry shows up on the screen. From what I have seen of the cast members, they have all been getting along great, so I expect the chemistry to shine between them all (for the most part). The last image is for those of us who read the books as it points to a particular scene from them. I won’t go into it here, but it should be one of the highlights of the early episodes.I am certainly looking forward to seeing more. The series is set to premier in November (as mentioned earlier), so it is getting closer. It has been a long time coming and I know us WoT fans are anxiously awaiting that moment. One thing that can be said about the production team is that they have been friendly with the fan community. Over the past couple of years, many of the info releases (such as casting news and small glimpses) were released on a Wednesday. The moniker #WoTWednesday was born in that and has become a tradition of sorts.

With that in mind, this article was made public (though the official publication of the article is in Friday’s issue of the magazine) on a Wednesday. The last few months have seen the last Wednesday of the month to be the day when elements of the show were released. From small 3 – 5 second clips to tidbits here and there, the production team at Amazon has wet the appetite of the fandom. As November gets closer, I expect that to ramp up rapidly. Being as next Wednesday is the last one of August, I expect something big. It is my prediction that the trailer will drop on that date. At the very least, we should get a short (30 second) teaser trailer. The showrunner, Rafe Judkins, did say that we will get a trailer before the end of summer. Whatever the case, the premier of this show is the second biggest thing I am looking forward to this fall (the first being the arrival of my second daughter).

Links to Know

If you are familiar with the series, or are curious to learn more, there are many wonderful sites and YouTubers around the web. A word of caution, however, spoilers abound for this epic show throughout these locations. However, most sites and YouTubers are pretty good about warning ahead of time. There are a lot, so I will just touch on a few of them here. A whole blogpost could be dedicated to the resources throughout the web regarding The Wheel of Time series (both the books and the TV Series).

First of all there is Dragonmount. It is a popular news site regarding the series that also features in depth discussions of various aspects of the books (and show). If you are on Twitter, there is a fan community known as #TwitterOfTime. It is a very welcoming community to those familiar with the series and newbies alike. Another popular website is Theoryland. This site is really for people who have read the series and to discuss speculation regarding the books and open-ended mysteries. The owner of the site, Matt Hatch, runs a call-in YouTube channel called The Dusty Wheel. He and his guest hosts have a lot of fun talking about various aspects of the books and shows.

That brings us to the other YouTubers. One of the first that I encountered was Daniel Greene. His channel is general Fantasy News, however, he is a big WoT fanboy and is prominent in the community. He is also a published author. Then we have others that are focused on The Wheel of Time itself. First, there is Nae’blis. He covers the news and has a lot of in-depth videos about various aspects of the series from backgrounds of characters, cultures, and locations to battle analysis. A good resource if you want to know more of the background before diving in fully. And there is WOT UP!, a news channel focused solely on The Wheel of Time.

There are many more great YouTubers, sites, and podcasts that delve into the series and I wish I could list them all. Many of the sites that I have listed have aggregated lists which include many of those sites. If you are one of those YouTubers, Podcasters or Websites, feel free to post a link in the comments here (and/or in my Social Media posts for this blog). One thing I would be remis NOT to include is the fabulous narrators of the Wheel of Time audiobooks, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading. They really bring the story to life in audio form.

Voices of Time

To wrap up, I will leave you with a treat. About two years ago, the Wheel of Time online community was bombarded by a slew of posts where people would read the iconic first paragraph of the first chapter of The Wheel of Time. This paragraph repeated in every book (with only a slight alteration for where the “wind rose”). The trend came to be known under the hashtag #VoicesOfTime. So I leave you with my (nearly 6 year old) daughter reading doing just that.