Prime is doing their best Netflix impression here, putting out a show that I actually quite like only to cruelly cancel it as it finds its feet. I thought this was actually the best of the current...
Prime is doing their best Netflix impression here, putting out a show that I actually quite like only to cruelly cancel it as it finds its feet.
I thought this was actually the best of the current Amazon "big shows", followed by Reacher, then the Boys. It's a shame to see this go.
Finding its feet in two seasons isn’t enough. There’s also a survivorship bias that’s present in a lot of these cancelled shows - of course the people who stuck around for the third season are...
Finding its feet in two seasons isn’t enough. There’s also a survivorship bias that’s present in a lot of these cancelled shows - of course the people who stuck around for the third season are going to like it.
The first season was a disaster, and it needed some serious fortune to recover its viewership. Amazon already gave it a pretty long runway to give it another two seasons.
The first season was rough, and the second season made up for it, and then the third season obviously had a budget and complete production change, because the quality both in writing, editing, and...
The first season was rough, and the second season made up for it, and then the third season obviously had a budget and complete production change, because the quality both in writing, editing, and cinematography became high-level. Right out of the gate im the first episode of the season the quality was easily 1000x what the previous episode was. Went from a Syfy-level fantasy show (good story, decent concepts, with middling production quality), to big budget movie quality and incredible writing for every episode.
The downside is that it took them three seasons to even start wrapping up the big story they started in the very first episode, with several "fake-out" conclusions on the way.
In this particular case, waiting would have been a very long affair. With 14 books and a little over 4.3M words, cramming it into a tv series would have taken a while, even with the severe...
In this particular case, waiting would have been a very long affair. With 14 books and a little over 4.3M words, cramming it into a tv series would have taken a while, even with the severe truncations.
I believe the original intent was for 7 seasons, which I think feels about right for the pace at which the show was moving. They were 3 seasons in, and had folded in things from books beyond 3,...
I believe the original intent was for 7 seasons, which I think feels about right for the pace at which the show was moving. They were 3 seasons in, and had folded in things from books beyond 3, and it would have allowed them to mostly ignore books 8 - 11, in which very little action actually happens.
I do believe this is becoming a common approach for people, especially older people who have personally gone through a few iterations of being disappointed by a cancelled show. I predict the...
I do believe this is becoming a common approach for people, especially older people who have personally gone through a few iterations of being disappointed by a cancelled show.
I predict the industry's response will be: "People don't like long-running shows any more; they don't even tune into the first season. We should stop green lighting long running shows and focus more on 1-2 season formats." Followed by the death of content that can be allowed to slow burn.
I used to watch a lot of BBC stuff growing up and wasn’t this the norm in the UK before streaming? I remember growing up a lot of two series shows. Long running shows outside of Doctor Who were...
I used to watch a lot of BBC stuff growing up and wasn’t this the norm in the UK before streaming? I remember growing up a lot of two series shows. Long running shows outside of Doctor Who were rarer, I could be misremembering or maybe just ended up watching select things.
Just think of Bloodline as a mini series and only watch the first season, ignore the last 5-10 minutes of the last episode. The second season is okay, and the third middling to bad. The first...
Just think of Bloodline as a mini series and only watch the first season, ignore the last 5-10 minutes of the last episode.
The second season is okay, and the third middling to bad. The first season is such an incredible slow burn, and the scenery is absolutely stunning, so glad they got to shoot on location in the keys.
Yeeeeah, I'm with you on that. After reading through this thread, I've safely filed away this show under 'Never Touch'. Two seasons to get good then cancelled? I'm good.
Yeeeeah, I'm with you on that. After reading through this thread, I've safely filed away this show under 'Never Touch'. Two seasons to get good then cancelled? I'm good.
Wrapping up? They got 3 books into a 14 book series. They were doing a decent job of bringing stuff forward/spreading things around a bit. Presumably so there wouldn't be the 'slump' around book...
Wrapping up? They got 3 books into a 14 book series.
They were doing a decent job of bringing stuff forward/spreading things around a bit. Presumably so there wouldn't be the 'slump' around book 8/9. I read them long after they were published so it wasn't that bad personally but would have been absolutely brutal as a show. Plot up to a point, next book covers different PoV characters up to that point, next book covers different characters up to that point, then the plot continues. Frankly the characters are so dispersed at that point and there's enough going on and it's pivotal enough that it's a bit justified, but a more modern author would definitely spread it out more evenly.
Would be really nice for someone else continue the but don't know if there are any other billionaires looking for a pet TV project. Especially such a potentially long one.
I liked the show better than the books and I have crush on pretty much every character, I'm sad to see it go. I suspect, though, much like the population of tildes, we are a tiny minority in a sea...
I liked the show better than the books and I have crush on pretty much every character, I'm sad to see it go.
I suspect, though, much like the population of tildes, we are a tiny minority in a sea of folks who prefer things less complicated.
Me too. Frankly, I felt it was a better show than Rings of Power by leaps and bounds and I'm sorry to see that Amazon made the choice to cancel this show and not that one.
Me too.
Frankly, I felt it was a better show than Rings of Power by leaps and bounds and I'm sorry to see that Amazon made the choice to cancel this show and not that one.
I read these books as they came out and, like many, what started as a love/hate relationship with the writing became solid hate by like book four. I never stuck around to see what Jordan did with...
I read these books as they came out and, like many, what started as a love/hate relationship with the writing became solid hate by like book four. I never stuck around to see what Jordan did with it or how other writers reportedly “saved” it.
I was dubious about this TV series but was shocked to see how much better this team made the whole world. Great casting, strong writing that only got stronger, and a sense they were really making something worth watching got me excited.
Rosamund Pike was not only one of the lead actors but also an executive producer. It felt like her passion project. I gained enormous respect for her with this show.
My wife started watching, unknown to me, and we found ourselves on episode one of season three at the same time. The last time we watched a series together was when our daughter lived at home so these last few weeks have been a treat.
I’ll send this news to her. She’ll be sad. Now we need to find another fun series we can watch together. Any suggestions?
It's a scifi alt-history instead of fantasy, but I've really enjoyed For All Mankind (Apple+). There are 4 seasons, and they're all fantastic IMO. Very strong character writing, one of the...
It's a scifi alt-history instead of fantasy, but I've really enjoyed For All Mankind (Apple+). There are 4 seasons, and they're all fantastic IMO. Very strong character writing, one of the creators is Ronald D Moore (Star Trek TNG and DS9 series writer, Battlestar Galactica, Outlander).
Yet again, the promise of "more options, more choice!" has collapsed in the pursuit of the Mighty Dollar. I'm getting to the point where I don't want to watch a new series until I find out that it...
Yet again, the promise of "more options, more choice!" has collapsed in the pursuit of the Mighty Dollar.
I'm getting to the point where I don't want to watch a new series until I find out that it reached a good conclusion and wasn't canceled. Seems like most of our entertainment is going that way, and it's disappointing.
I think this is uncharitable. There objectively are far more TV shows, especially prestige TV shows today, some of which are extremely experimental (not to mention expensive) and would get laughed...
I think this is uncharitable. There objectively are far more TV shows, especially prestige TV shows today, some of which are extremely experimental (not to mention expensive) and would get laughed out of the room in the 2000s if someone pitched them to AMC or something.
The counterfactual isn't a world where all TV shows get unlimited money thrown at them endlessly - it's a world where only a few safe ideas get greenlit. And yeah, less shows get cancelled then, but honestly I prefer the world where people get to make wild stuff.
The other side of streaming companies being far more willing to try things is that more of them will be cancelled.
Those are your choices: investing in safe projects that have stable runtimes, or investing in experimental projects with the understanding that show runtimes will by necessity be more variable. Because sometimes the experiments don't pan out.
The counter-counter is that perhaps they should try and work on shows that have success for a given budget for a smaller audience instead of just trying to be the biggest dog and canceling...
The counter-counter is that perhaps they should try and work on shows that have success for a given budget for a smaller audience instead of just trying to be the biggest dog and canceling everything that isn't huge.
I'm not really attacking them, I'm just disappointed in them. But I'm disappointed in companies and capitalism in general, and I'd prefer a world in which nonprofits and governments are able to give grants to projects. I mean, I do enjoy big blockbuster hits like Andor… but I'm just so exhausted by series after series after series getting 1-2 seasons and being canceled without being completed.
To be clear - I'm grateful for them taking chances. I'm just irritated that things that are going well but not super-well-make-investors-jizz-their-shorts-well are being canceled. heh
But also, not exactly topical but related: Projects like Foundation that were about as inspired by the original meterial as La Croix is…
There are mid-budget TV series, though. It's as much a decision by the showrunners on the vision they want to portray. For Wheel of Time, it was something that could rival GoT - each episode had a...
There are mid-budget TV series, though. It's as much a decision by the showrunners on the vision they want to portray. For Wheel of Time, it was something that could rival GoT - each episode had a $8m budget.
Examples of smaller budget hits are The Bear (season 1, budget clearly went up afterwards), Reservation Dogs, Squid Games, White Lotus (only $3m/episode in comparison).
It's also an example of survivorship (or deathship?) bias - you mainly know budgets when things crash and burn. If everything goes well, the budget is usually kept secret. It's when things get bloated, that insiders start coming out to complain that we find out about these kind of things.
I'd like to point out that this does, to an extent, exist. Canada has quite extensive options. It proves that this model is not impossible, it merely requires buy-in from the people who would be...
I'd prefer a world in which nonprofits and governments are able to give grants to projects
I'd like to point out that this does, to an extent, exist. Canada has quite extensive options. It proves that this model is not impossible, it merely requires buy-in from the people who would be funding it (generally with tax dollars).
A moderate tax on internet connectivity (say 10% of the internet bill) could easily provide enough funds to eliminate the concept of piracy by sponsoring public domain works.
I mention this a lot, but I think we need a tax funded video streaming platform. Something that allows anybody with access to a library to publish content and have it hosted for free. Someplace...
I'd prefer a world in which nonprofits and governments are able to give grants to projects
I mention this a lot, but I think we need a tax funded video streaming platform. Something that allows anybody with access to a library to publish content and have it hosted for free. Someplace that is specifically non profit and therefore has a fully transparent algorithm for surfacing and finding content.
This is tangential but along the same lines to what you're saying. Ultimately, for capitalist entities, profit will always be the first priority. That means quality will always be (AT BEST) a second priority, but as we see, it's not a priority at all. In fact it's the opposite: it's seen as a thing to cut back on until you've located the market-proven minimum that people will accept without leaving you.
Tax funded film could produce really amazing works. But of course it depends on what tax funded means and whether it's run in good faith or as a propaganda machine. I don't think I'd want tax funded film in my current country because I see enough flag worship around where I live.
I wonder if BitTorrent could serve a portion this idea. You would need to run a few dedicated trackers and build some sort of front end. It wouldn't function exactly like the traditional streaming...
I wonder if BitTorrent could serve a portion this idea. You would need to run a few dedicated trackers and build some sort of front end. It wouldn't function exactly like the traditional streaming services in that you would probably have to queue up what you wanted to watch ahead of time and give it a little time to download. I imagine there would be desire from the creative people/teams for some sort of DRM support which could be doable. I'm mostly just thinking out loud here. There are probably a number of aspects I haven't considered, but seems like a decent framework for an open source project that shouldn't be terribly costly. It still doesn't create the content, but could help in distribution.
For around €6,50/mo I have a seedbox (in a country that doesn't kill such things). If a torrent is decently seeded, I can often obtain a movie in a minute or two - and I'm talking ultra HD....
For around €6,50/mo I have a seedbox (in a country that doesn't kill such things). If a torrent is decently seeded, I can often obtain a movie in a minute or two - and I'm talking ultra HD. Because the seedbox runs enby, when I download I put it in the correct folder by specifying the correct category (e.g. "Movie", "TV", etc), and because enby waches the file structure, I can start streaming it immediately after it finishes downloading.
If we we were to legitimize this process, it'd be a matter of cloud storage for media files and enough bandwidth to stream everything to everyone. Or you could allow for downloading offline.
(It wouldn't make much difference to the needed bandwidth - either you download before you watch or you download while you watch. Either works, but downloading before you watch allows offline viewing)
This really isn't an issue. Hosting video is a given now. The issue is getting people to know about your content. The value-add of youtube today isn't that they host video, it's that there's a...
Something that allows anybody with access to a library to publish content and have it hosted for free. Someplace that is specifically non profit and therefore has a fully transparent algorithm for surfacing and finding content.
This really isn't an issue. Hosting video is a given now. The issue is getting people to know about your content. The value-add of youtube today isn't that they host video, it's that there's a large audience who trusts the youtube algorithm, so you can post your video and if the algorithm likes it it will shuffle viewers over.
Video hosting is a very solved problem. But there is no platform that I'm aware of today that will host video without expecting to earn a return on that content. If you had one, there would be no...
Video hosting is a very solved problem. But there is no platform that I'm aware of today that will host video without expecting to earn a return on that content. If you had one, there would be no need for an algorithm optimized for ad views.
I see the value add for YouTube to shuffle viewers over to more successful media, when the success metrics are around getting them to view ads. I disagree that The Algorithm is a value add for the user. I'm also not sure that people trust The Algorithm; I imagine most people don't think about it at all, or underestimate how curated their experience is. I also don't think it's reasonable to trust a system to find content for you when it's not transparent and objectively has different goals than me.
My goal with the above proposal is to remove the profit motive from video hosting, which is the fundamental problem. I think ad driven video platforms are fine for many types of content, but don't think they serve dry knowledge sharing content well (which is why many paid knowledge sharing video platforms thrive next to YouTube).
I've seen many beloved channels go to short form and goofy faces on title cards in order to remain competitive on a video platform that's first and foremost about showing ads. The same creators lamented "having" to make the change but needing to accommodate The Algorithm. I realize they could always remain on YouTube with their original formats, but I don't trust YouTube's algorithm to fairly locate less popular / drier content for me when there is far more popular content hitting the same keywords.
You always have google drive. But again, the reason you need a "platform" like youtube isn't to host the video. It's extremely cheap and easy to host video. A video hosting platform was necessary...
You always have google drive. But again, the reason you need a "platform" like youtube isn't to host the video. It's extremely cheap and easy to host video. A video hosting platform was necessary when you had to install macromedia flash to watch a video. These days, every browser will handle a raw MP4 file shoved at it like a pro.
What you need it for is viewers. You can host all the video you want, but there's no point if no one watches it. That's the value add. Youtube isn't a video hosting platform - it's social media, and its competition is tiktok and instagram reels.
If you're an independent creator, your bottleneck isn't "oh, where can I upload a video and have other people watch it?". There's a variety of options that are accessible at every level. The bottleneck is, "how do I upload my video and have people watch it?"
A government funded platform would have two issues: one is that the first amendment is a serious limitation in the ability to moderate, and make the platform somewhere people want to be. It's like how every reddit alternative becomes a cesspool, except worse, because the actual law of the land prevents moderation, or at least lets people challenge any moderation action in court. Second is that there's no reason people will use it.
There's plenty of people who host their video in other ways - patreon, things like nebula or floatplane. They still upload on youtube, because youtube is discovery. What they would want to "jump ship" is another discovery platform.
And to be honest, I don't want to go on what would effectively be video-based social media... run by Donald Trump.
I felt like they really nailed the feeling that I had in my head of the traversal of the glass columns; I was really impressed by that. I was generally impressed with the casting choices that they...
I felt like they really nailed the feeling that I had in my head of the traversal of the glass columns; I was really impressed by that. I was generally impressed with the casting choices that they made, especially Marcus Rutherford as Perrin who was just about perfect, and Daniel Henney as Lan who was actually perfect.
I've been on the cusp of watching it since its inception. I've read (well, listened to) the books three times over, so, after DFW, Jordan would be my most listened to author, by the hour. I love...
I've been on the cusp of watching it since its inception. I've read (well, listened to) the books three times over, so, after DFW, Jordan would be my most listened to author, by the hour. I love the series, accept its flaws, and appreciate the lore. I'm also not the sort to fret over a movie or show not being perfectly true to the novels; I appreciate, for example, the HHGTTG movie, miniseries, books, radio drama, and video game independently.
So, someone please tell me, if we're not getting to the Final Battle, is the series worth watching?
As a fan of the show and a much bigger fan of the books, on balance, I don't think it's particularly worthwhile to watch the show now that it won't be completed. I think that the show is set up to...
As a fan of the show and a much bigger fan of the books, on balance, I don't think it's particularly worthwhile to watch the show now that it won't be completed.
I think that the show is set up to be a slightly different turn of the wheel, which had some really interesting results. Broadly, the story beats and motivations for characters are all pretty similar, but there are enough differences for some things to be truly surprising, and I enjoyed that about it, but now the things that have changed are doing so without possibility of resolution; that turning of the Wheel will always be incomplete.
I think that the shows suffered from one of the primary things that all shows-adapted-from-books suffer from, which is that a lot of hardcore fans seem to have a problem accepting that a show or movie doesn't necessarily have to follow the source material exactly for it to be quite good. I think that there are some changes that the show made that were interesting and made good changes from the book, but in most of the discussions I see online about the show are often looked at quite negatively.
I have mixed feelings about it. The first season completely butchers one of my favorite books. It feels like a higher budget SyFy show wearing the name and characters' names like a Scooby Doo...
I have mixed feelings about it.
The first season completely butchers one of my favorite books. It feels like a higher budget SyFy show wearing the name and characters' names like a Scooby Doo villain's rubber mask. It has its moments, and a few of the limited number of episodes aren't bad...and it's great to see an adaptation attempted, but ultimately it's someone else's weaker story riding on the coattails of a beloved author.
Season 2 was markedly better. It did many dumb things, but showed some signs of progress. Then the end was silly and was written like a Marvel battle scene.
Season 3 was probably the best yet, and finally started developing Mat's character instead of doing him a major disservice, even including a couple of his major moments from the books that I had assumed were cut (they were just reordered). It adapted a couple of major arcs in an acceptable manner...then fell apart catastrophically in the last 2-3 episodes and gave everyone the middle finger by killing off two important characters from the book. It was a much more solid season, but threw all that goodwill away near the finish line. And some parts of it were actually really well done, like Rhuidean.
I still can't get over the unmitigated hubris of unceremoniously killing off a certain character, while simultaneously giving tons of screen time to a show-original one.
If you haven't read the books, it's an entertaining show. If you're a fan of the books...it's a mixture of entertaining and a really bad time.
As a more opinionated addendum: I'm kind of glad it's over, because now it's probably open for someone else to option the rights some day. My dream is a high budget anime adaptation that can...
As a more opinionated addendum: I'm kind of glad it's over, because now it's probably open for someone else to option the rights some day.
My dream is a high budget anime adaptation that can really do it justice when it comes to the weirder things (e.g. fights with Ba'alzamon in the first couple of books) or big One Power events. The characters already sort of fit into common anime archetypes, and their tics and internal monologues can be rendered more expressively. I imagine something like Fullmetal Alchemist.
It's worth watching for their take on Rhuidean alone. It had no business being that good and I loved finally seeing it put to screen. It's season 3, episode 4 if you just want to watch it. They...
It's worth watching for their take on Rhuidean alone. It had no business being that good and I loved finally seeing it put to screen. It's season 3, episode 4 if you just want to watch it. They have great touches like speaking in the old tongue and you get to hear "the song". Otherwise, I agree with @redwall_hp summary.
Just wanted to say that having grown up in the Dallas / Ft. Worth Metroplex, this completely broke my brain and it took me a good few seconds to comprehend that sentence. heh
DFW
Just wanted to say that having grown up in the Dallas / Ft. Worth Metroplex, this completely broke my brain and it took me a good few seconds to comprehend that sentence. heh
Are you fucking kidding me? This was one of my favorite shows on TV and I was so ridiculously invested. Season 3 was a huge step up in quality, too. I know it won’t happen, but I hope someone else...
Are you fucking kidding me? This was one of my favorite shows on TV and I was so ridiculously invested. Season 3 was a huge step up in quality, too. I know it won’t happen, but I hope someone else picks the show up because I’m genuinely devastated that I may never see the ending, now (unless I read the gargantuan books).
It's not quite the same as the books but Dragonmount (one of the OG WoT fan sites) has book summaries and chapter recaps https://dragonmount.com/books You would probably want to start from Eye of...
It's not quite the same as the books but Dragonmount (one of the OG WoT fan sites) has book summaries and chapter recaps https://dragonmount.com/books
You would probably want to start from Eye of the World since the show changed enough of the story that there you can't really just pick up from a few books in after watching the show.
Thank you! As much as I'd like to read the books, I usually only read 3-5 books per year (and smaller ones) so I don't think I would ever get around to actually reading all of WoT.
Thank you! As much as I'd like to read the books, I usually only read 3-5 books per year (and smaller ones) so I don't think I would ever get around to actually reading all of WoT.
I'm surprised it made it to three seasons, I watched the first but wasn't convinced to bother with the second. It started poorly with things like claiming the Dragon Reborn could be a woman and...
Exemplary
I'm surprised it made it to three seasons, I watched the first but wasn't convinced to bother with the second. It started poorly with things like claiming the Dragon Reborn could be a woman and Perrin suddenly having then killing a wife, and didn't rise above mediocre after that. The end with Mat being removed from the group, Rand separating from the group, and Nynaeve and Egwene having a massive battle that didn't happen in the books (then proceeding to heal being burnt out, which definitely isn't possible at this stage and wasn't yet possible at the end of the series) didn't leave me with a desire to find out what they were going to mangle in the second series.
It’s surprising to me only in the sense of how much money they spent in adverting for this in the first season, only to cancel it now. It’s weird how these platforms no longer think of the long...
It’s surprising to me only in the sense of how much money they spent in adverting for this in the first season, only to cancel it now. It’s weird how these platforms no longer think of the long term and the fact that they will have a graveyard of shows. I didn’t personally know many people watching it. From the start it felt like they were trying ro force it to instantly be Game of Thrones, even though that took time to build up.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but aside from nostalgia for my first run through the books (and fantasy writing of that scope) as a teenager, the series to me was a bloated patchwork of ideas,...
Probably an unpopular opinion, but aside from nostalgia for my first run through the books (and fantasy writing of that scope) as a teenager, the series to me was a bloated patchwork of ideas, many which took too long to develop.
Broadly speaking, I feel about the Wheel of Time like I do about Final Fantasy 7. Both originals met the moment when they were released, but today, the setting, characters and plot points all feel so boring - to the point that I'm not sure how any revisionist could dress them up to be interesting for modern audiences.
Prime is doing their best Netflix impression here, putting out a show that I actually quite like only to cruelly cancel it as it finds its feet.
I thought this was actually the best of the current Amazon "big shows", followed by Reacher, then the Boys. It's a shame to see this go.
Finding its feet in two seasons isn’t enough. There’s also a survivorship bias that’s present in a lot of these cancelled shows - of course the people who stuck around for the third season are going to like it.
The first season was a disaster, and it needed some serious fortune to recover its viewership. Amazon already gave it a pretty long runway to give it another two seasons.
The first season was rough, and the second season made up for it, and then the third season obviously had a budget and complete production change, because the quality both in writing, editing, and cinematography became high-level. Right out of the gate im the first episode of the season the quality was easily 1000x what the previous episode was. Went from a Syfy-level fantasy show (good story, decent concepts, with middling production quality), to big budget movie quality and incredible writing for every episode.
The downside is that it took them three seasons to even start wrapping up the big story they started in the very first episode, with several "fake-out" conclusions on the way.
In this particular case, waiting would have been a very long affair. With 14 books and a little over 4.3M words, cramming it into a tv series would have taken a while, even with the severe truncations.
I believe the original intent was for 7 seasons, which I think feels about right for the pace at which the show was moving. They were 3 seasons in, and had folded in things from books beyond 3, and it would have allowed them to mostly ignore books 8 - 11, in which very little action actually happens.
I do believe this is becoming a common approach for people, especially older people who have personally gone through a few iterations of being disappointed by a cancelled show.
I predict the industry's response will be: "People don't like long-running shows any more; they don't even tune into the first season. We should stop green lighting long running shows and focus more on 1-2 season formats." Followed by the death of content that can be allowed to slow burn.
:(
I used to watch a lot of BBC stuff growing up and wasn’t this the norm in the UK before streaming? I remember growing up a lot of two series shows. Long running shows outside of Doctor Who were rarer, I could be misremembering or maybe just ended up watching select things.
I just realized I never do that either (e.g. Bloodline), so I guess so.
Just think of Bloodline as a mini series and only watch the first season, ignore the last 5-10 minutes of the last episode.
The second season is okay, and the third middling to bad. The first season is such an incredible slow burn, and the scenery is absolutely stunning, so glad they got to shoot on location in the keys.
Sold!
Yeeeeah, I'm with you on that. After reading through this thread, I've safely filed away this show under 'Never Touch'. Two seasons to get good then cancelled? I'm good.
Season 3 ends with major cliffhangers that will now never get resolved so yeah, can't recommend the show at all.
Wrapping up? They got 3 books into a 14 book series.
They were doing a decent job of bringing stuff forward/spreading things around a bit. Presumably so there wouldn't be the 'slump' around book 8/9. I read them long after they were published so it wasn't that bad personally but would have been absolutely brutal as a show. Plot up to a point, next book covers different PoV characters up to that point, next book covers different characters up to that point, then the plot continues. Frankly the characters are so dispersed at that point and there's enough going on and it's pivotal enough that it's a bit justified, but a more modern author would definitely spread it out more evenly.
Would be really nice for someone else continue the but don't know if there are any other billionaires looking for a pet TV project. Especially such a potentially long one.
I liked the show better than the books and I have crush on pretty much every character, I'm sad to see it go.
I suspect, though, much like the population of tildes, we are a tiny minority in a sea of folks who prefer things less complicated.
Me too.
Frankly, I felt it was a better show than Rings of Power by leaps and bounds and I'm sorry to see that Amazon made the choice to cancel this show and not that one.
I read these books as they came out and, like many, what started as a love/hate relationship with the writing became solid hate by like book four. I never stuck around to see what Jordan did with it or how other writers reportedly “saved” it.
I was dubious about this TV series but was shocked to see how much better this team made the whole world. Great casting, strong writing that only got stronger, and a sense they were really making something worth watching got me excited.
Rosamund Pike was not only one of the lead actors but also an executive producer. It felt like her passion project. I gained enormous respect for her with this show.
My wife started watching, unknown to me, and we found ourselves on episode one of season three at the same time. The last time we watched a series together was when our daughter lived at home so these last few weeks have been a treat.
I’ll send this news to her. She’ll be sad. Now we need to find another fun series we can watch together. Any suggestions?
It's a scifi alt-history instead of fantasy, but I've really enjoyed For All Mankind (Apple+). There are 4 seasons, and they're all fantastic IMO. Very strong character writing, one of the creators is Ronald D Moore (Star Trek TNG and DS9 series writer, Battlestar Galactica, Outlander).
Yet again, the promise of "more options, more choice!" has collapsed in the pursuit of the Mighty Dollar.
I'm getting to the point where I don't want to watch a new series until I find out that it reached a good conclusion and wasn't canceled. Seems like most of our entertainment is going that way, and it's disappointing.
I think this is uncharitable. There objectively are far more TV shows, especially prestige TV shows today, some of which are extremely experimental (not to mention expensive) and would get laughed out of the room in the 2000s if someone pitched them to AMC or something.
The counterfactual isn't a world where all TV shows get unlimited money thrown at them endlessly - it's a world where only a few safe ideas get greenlit. And yeah, less shows get cancelled then, but honestly I prefer the world where people get to make wild stuff.
The other side of streaming companies being far more willing to try things is that more of them will be cancelled.
Those are your choices: investing in safe projects that have stable runtimes, or investing in experimental projects with the understanding that show runtimes will by necessity be more variable. Because sometimes the experiments don't pan out.
The counter-counter is that perhaps they should try and work on shows that have success for a given budget for a smaller audience instead of just trying to be the biggest dog and canceling everything that isn't huge.
I'm not really attacking them, I'm just disappointed in them. But I'm disappointed in companies and capitalism in general, and I'd prefer a world in which nonprofits and governments are able to give grants to projects. I mean, I do enjoy big blockbuster hits like Andor… but I'm just so exhausted by series after series after series getting 1-2 seasons and being canceled without being completed.
To be clear - I'm grateful for them taking chances. I'm just irritated that things that are going well but not super-well-make-investors-jizz-their-shorts-well are being canceled. heh
But also, not exactly topical but related: Projects like Foundation that were about as inspired by the original meterial as La Croix is…
There are mid-budget TV series, though. It's as much a decision by the showrunners on the vision they want to portray. For Wheel of Time, it was something that could rival GoT - each episode had a $8m budget.
Examples of smaller budget hits are The Bear (season 1, budget clearly went up afterwards), Reservation Dogs, Squid Games, White Lotus (only $3m/episode in comparison).
It's also an example of survivorship (or deathship?) bias - you mainly know budgets when things crash and burn. If everything goes well, the budget is usually kept secret. It's when things get bloated, that insiders start coming out to complain that we find out about these kind of things.
I'd like to point out that this does, to an extent, exist. Canada has quite extensive options. It proves that this model is not impossible, it merely requires buy-in from the people who would be funding it (generally with tax dollars).
A moderate tax on internet connectivity (say 10% of the internet bill) could easily provide enough funds to eliminate the concept of piracy by sponsoring public domain works.
I mention this a lot, but I think we need a tax funded video streaming platform. Something that allows anybody with access to a library to publish content and have it hosted for free. Someplace that is specifically non profit and therefore has a fully transparent algorithm for surfacing and finding content.
This is tangential but along the same lines to what you're saying. Ultimately, for capitalist entities, profit will always be the first priority. That means quality will always be (AT BEST) a second priority, but as we see, it's not a priority at all. In fact it's the opposite: it's seen as a thing to cut back on until you've located the market-proven minimum that people will accept without leaving you.
Tax funded film could produce really amazing works. But of course it depends on what tax funded means and whether it's run in good faith or as a propaganda machine. I don't think I'd want tax funded film in my current country because I see enough flag worship around where I live.
I wonder if BitTorrent could serve a portion this idea. You would need to run a few dedicated trackers and build some sort of front end. It wouldn't function exactly like the traditional streaming services in that you would probably have to queue up what you wanted to watch ahead of time and give it a little time to download. I imagine there would be desire from the creative people/teams for some sort of DRM support which could be doable. I'm mostly just thinking out loud here. There are probably a number of aspects I haven't considered, but seems like a decent framework for an open source project that shouldn't be terribly costly. It still doesn't create the content, but could help in distribution.
For around €6,50/mo I have a seedbox (in a country that doesn't kill such things). If a torrent is decently seeded, I can often obtain a movie in a minute or two - and I'm talking ultra HD. Because the seedbox runs enby, when I download I put it in the correct folder by specifying the correct category (e.g. "Movie", "TV", etc), and because enby waches the file structure, I can start streaming it immediately after it finishes downloading.
If we we were to legitimize this process, it'd be a matter of cloud storage for media files and enough bandwidth to stream everything to everyone. Or you could allow for downloading offline.
(It wouldn't make much difference to the needed bandwidth - either you download before you watch or you download while you watch. Either works, but downloading before you watch allows offline viewing)
This really isn't an issue. Hosting video is a given now. The issue is getting people to know about your content. The value-add of youtube today isn't that they host video, it's that there's a large audience who trusts the youtube algorithm, so you can post your video and if the algorithm likes it it will shuffle viewers over.
Video hosting is a very solved problem. But there is no platform that I'm aware of today that will host video without expecting to earn a return on that content. If you had one, there would be no need for an algorithm optimized for ad views.
I see the value add for YouTube to shuffle viewers over to more successful media, when the success metrics are around getting them to view ads. I disagree that The Algorithm is a value add for the user. I'm also not sure that people trust The Algorithm; I imagine most people don't think about it at all, or underestimate how curated their experience is. I also don't think it's reasonable to trust a system to find content for you when it's not transparent and objectively has different goals than me.
My goal with the above proposal is to remove the profit motive from video hosting, which is the fundamental problem. I think ad driven video platforms are fine for many types of content, but don't think they serve dry knowledge sharing content well (which is why many paid knowledge sharing video platforms thrive next to YouTube).
I've seen many beloved channels go to short form and goofy faces on title cards in order to remain competitive on a video platform that's first and foremost about showing ads. The same creators lamented "having" to make the change but needing to accommodate The Algorithm. I realize they could always remain on YouTube with their original formats, but I don't trust YouTube's algorithm to fairly locate less popular / drier content for me when there is far more popular content hitting the same keywords.
You always have google drive. But again, the reason you need a "platform" like youtube isn't to host the video. It's extremely cheap and easy to host video. A video hosting platform was necessary when you had to install macromedia flash to watch a video. These days, every browser will handle a raw MP4 file shoved at it like a pro.
What you need it for is viewers. You can host all the video you want, but there's no point if no one watches it. That's the value add. Youtube isn't a video hosting platform - it's social media, and its competition is tiktok and instagram reels.
If you're an independent creator, your bottleneck isn't "oh, where can I upload a video and have other people watch it?". There's a variety of options that are accessible at every level. The bottleneck is, "how do I upload my video and have people watch it?"
A government funded platform would have two issues: one is that the first amendment is a serious limitation in the ability to moderate, and make the platform somewhere people want to be. It's like how every reddit alternative becomes a cesspool, except worse, because the actual law of the land prevents moderation, or at least lets people challenge any moderation action in court. Second is that there's no reason people will use it.
There's plenty of people who host their video in other ways - patreon, things like nebula or floatplane. They still upload on youtube, because youtube is discovery. What they would want to "jump ship" is another discovery platform.
And to be honest, I don't want to go on what would effectively be video-based social media... run by Donald Trump.
I'll give the series this: the Rhuidean storyline, while abbreviated from the books, was just perfect.
I felt like they really nailed the feeling that I had in my head of the traversal of the glass columns; I was really impressed by that. I was generally impressed with the casting choices that they made, especially Marcus Rutherford as Perrin who was just about perfect, and Daniel Henney as Lan who was actually perfect.
I've been on the cusp of watching it since its inception. I've read (well, listened to) the books three times over, so, after DFW, Jordan would be my most listened to author, by the hour. I love the series, accept its flaws, and appreciate the lore. I'm also not the sort to fret over a movie or show not being perfectly true to the novels; I appreciate, for example, the HHGTTG movie, miniseries, books, radio drama, and video game independently.
So, someone please tell me, if we're not getting to the Final Battle, is the series worth watching?
As a fan of the show and a much bigger fan of the books, on balance, I don't think it's particularly worthwhile to watch the show now that it won't be completed.
I think that the show is set up to be a slightly different turn of the wheel, which had some really interesting results. Broadly, the story beats and motivations for characters are all pretty similar, but there are enough differences for some things to be truly surprising, and I enjoyed that about it, but now the things that have changed are doing so without possibility of resolution; that turning of the Wheel will always be incomplete.
I think that the shows suffered from one of the primary things that all shows-adapted-from-books suffer from, which is that a lot of hardcore fans seem to have a problem accepting that a show or movie doesn't necessarily have to follow the source material exactly for it to be quite good. I think that there are some changes that the show made that were interesting and made good changes from the book, but in most of the discussions I see online about the show are often looked at quite negatively.
I have mixed feelings about it.
The first season completely butchers one of my favorite books. It feels like a higher budget SyFy show wearing the name and characters' names like a Scooby Doo villain's rubber mask. It has its moments, and a few of the limited number of episodes aren't bad...and it's great to see an adaptation attempted, but ultimately it's someone else's weaker story riding on the coattails of a beloved author.
Season 2 was markedly better. It did many dumb things, but showed some signs of progress. Then the end was silly and was written like a Marvel battle scene.
Season 3 was probably the best yet, and finally started developing Mat's character instead of doing him a major disservice, even including a couple of his major moments from the books that I had assumed were cut (they were just reordered). It adapted a couple of major arcs in an acceptable manner...then fell apart catastrophically in the last 2-3 episodes and gave everyone the middle finger by killing off two important characters from the book. It was a much more solid season, but threw all that goodwill away near the finish line. And some parts of it were actually really well done, like Rhuidean.
I still can't get over the unmitigated hubris of unceremoniously killing off a certain character, while simultaneously giving tons of screen time to a show-original one.
If you haven't read the books, it's an entertaining show. If you're a fan of the books...it's a mixture of entertaining and a really bad time.
As a more opinionated addendum: I'm kind of glad it's over, because now it's probably open for someone else to option the rights some day.
My dream is a high budget anime adaptation that can really do it justice when it comes to the weirder things (e.g. fights with Ba'alzamon in the first couple of books) or big One Power events. The characters already sort of fit into common anime archetypes, and their tics and internal monologues can be rendered more expressively. I imagine something like Fullmetal Alchemist.
It's worth watching for their take on Rhuidean alone. It had no business being that good and I loved finally seeing it put to screen. It's season 3, episode 4 if you just want to watch it. They have great touches like speaking in the old tongue and you get to hear "the song". Otherwise, I agree with @redwall_hp summary.
Just wanted to say that having grown up in the Dallas / Ft. Worth Metroplex, this completely broke my brain and it took me a good few seconds to comprehend that sentence. heh
Are you fucking kidding me? This was one of my favorite shows on TV and I was so ridiculously invested. Season 3 was a huge step up in quality, too. I know it won’t happen, but I hope someone else picks the show up because I’m genuinely devastated that I may never see the ending, now (unless I read the gargantuan books).
It's not quite the same as the books but Dragonmount (one of the OG WoT fan sites) has book summaries and chapter recaps https://dragonmount.com/books
You would probably want to start from Eye of the World since the show changed enough of the story that there you can't really just pick up from a few books in after watching the show.
Thank you! As much as I'd like to read the books, I usually only read 3-5 books per year (and smaller ones) so I don't think I would ever get around to actually reading all of WoT.
I'm surprised it made it to three seasons, I watched the first but wasn't convinced to bother with the second. It started poorly with things like claiming the Dragon Reborn could be a woman and Perrin suddenly having then killing a wife, and didn't rise above mediocre after that. The end with Mat being removed from the group, Rand separating from the group, and Nynaeve and Egwene having a massive battle that didn't happen in the books (then proceeding to heal being burnt out, which definitely isn't possible at this stage and wasn't yet possible at the end of the series) didn't leave me with a desire to find out what they were going to mangle in the second series.
It’s surprising to me only in the sense of how much money they spent in adverting for this in the first season, only to cancel it now. It’s weird how these platforms no longer think of the long term and the fact that they will have a graveyard of shows. I didn’t personally know many people watching it. From the start it felt like they were trying ro force it to instantly be Game of Thrones, even though that took time to build up.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but aside from nostalgia for my first run through the books (and fantasy writing of that scope) as a teenager, the series to me was a bloated patchwork of ideas, many which took too long to develop.
Broadly speaking, I feel about the Wheel of Time like I do about Final Fantasy 7. Both originals met the moment when they were released, but today, the setting, characters and plot points all feel so boring - to the point that I'm not sure how any revisionist could dress them up to be interesting for modern audiences.