The 10 best sci-fi/fantasy shows and movies of 2021
By WiC Staff
The Wheel of Time
Speaking of unfilmable stories, we were treated to another pretty big one in 2021: Amazon Prime Video’s highly anticipated adaptation of The Wheel of Time. Ever since Jeff Bezos decreed that he wanted to find “the next Game of Thrones,” Amazon Studios has been throwing truckloads of money at ambitious genre productions. This year we finally got to see the fruits of that labor with eight episodes of The Wheel of Time.
The result was pretty amazing. Sure, there were some sticking points, but considering the challenge of adapting the 15-book series penned by Robert Jordan (and finished after the author’s death by Brandon Sanderson), showrunner Rafe Judkins and his team did about as good a job as possibly could have been hoped for. In some ways, they even improved on the original story. Jordan’s series is notorious for dragging in places, but because the show has far less space to tell the tale, the team had to think hard about what they could cut without sacrificing the soul of the piece. Despite some hiccups, it was always obvious that the people behind The Wheel of Time really cared about the story.
That dedication brought us episodes like “The Flame of Tar Valon,” which depicted not only the fascinating political workings of the Aes Sedai (something we don’t get to see on the page until Books 2 and 3), but also the inner depths of characters like Moiraine and Siuan Sanche, which are never seen in this much detail in the books. The Trollocs and Fades and magical weaves all look incredible, there’s a rock solid cast, and the writing team is clearly thinking of the long game.
Considering that the books only get better from here, I think it’s officially safe to get really excited about the future of The Wheel of Time. — Daniel