Nothing infuriates fans of classic fantasy novel series The Wheel Of Time like comparing it to Game Of Thrones.
Fear not, as The Wheel Of Time doesn’t compare at all, at least in terms of the quality of the opening episodes.
Where Game Of Thrones established itself by not only defenestrating a child in the opening 45 minutes but also establishing some compelling tension between two noble families, The Wheel Of Time wastes no time trying to build the tension slowly.
The apocalyptic stakes are fired at your face in episode one. There’s lots of fantasy backstory but essentially Rosamund Pike is a wizard looking for the reincarnation of a dangerous man.
She descends on the village of Two Rivers where peasant life clearly suits the locals. Despite a lack of GPs, dental care and access to Superdrug the serfs all look like Gap models.
Anyway a bunch of nasties, called Trollocs, and a significant chunk of the first episode’s budget, attack Two Rivers leading to the sort of sequence from Game Of Thrones’ later seasons where monsters pick off the people no longer important to the plot.
Everything in The Wheel Of Time is very expensive (Rosamund Pike couldn’t have been cheap) but so far the whole thing looks like an ill-advised spin-off of Xena: Warrior Princess. Things could change, but, so far, it’s a lot of Trollocs.
The Wheel Of Time, Amazon Prime
Enjoy the convenience of having The Sunday Post delivered as a digital ePaper straight to your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Subscribe for only £5.49 a month and enjoy all the benefits of the printed paper as a digital replica.
Subscribe