The Wheel of Time directors explain why the show has caught on
By Dan Selcke
The second season of The Wheel of Time is airing now on Amazon Prime Video. The show was a hit when it premiered back in 2021, but there was a vocal contingent of fans who didn’t like what they saw. The second has been getting better reviews, and hopefully it’s only onward and upward from here.
The Wheel of Time is at the forefront of a new crop of big-budget high fantasy shows that also includes The Rings of Power, The Witcher, Shadow and Bone and House of the Dragon. That’s only fitting, since it’s based on some of the most popular fantasy books of the past few decades: The Wheel of Time saga by Robert Jordan.
“Briefly, I would say I think it’s just a really exciting time to be in the genre,” The Wheel of Time director Thomas Napper told ScreenRant. “To see the work that’s being produced by other companies, it just adds to the kind of excitement of working on this show. It means that the bar is high and the expectation of the audience is high. But in truth, Robert Jordan is a universe all on his own. 5,400 named characters across those 14 books. This is not a small world and our focus is truly on Wheel of Time and making these books come to life and these scripts come to life as best we can.”
Why are there so many high fantasy shows these days?
The Wheel of Time director Sanaa Hamri picked up on that thought. “And you can only be authentic to your baby and really making the best product that you can, and then we put it out in the world,” she said. “So it’s not about comparisons. I think because of the high fantasy realm, people always bring in all these other shows, but the truth of the matter is, there are a lot of dramas, there are a lot of cop shows, there are a lot of different types of shows that you can watch, comedies, and they’re different.” There’s room for everyone!
Hamri also offered a theory on why fantasy shows like The Wheel of Time seem to be catching on right now:
"I think we’re in a time in the world where we want to be able to escape what is happening now, our reality, and I think these type of shows and The Wheel of Time is a place where you can put your troubles away and just watch and kind of go into the world of Robert Jordan."
I think there’s some truth to the idea that fantasies like The Wheel of Time appeal to our increased need for escapism these days, although I also think there’s a simpler explanation for why these sorts of shows have proliferated: Game of Thrones was a historically huge hit for HBO and now other networks aren’t trying to replicate its success. Jeff Bezos basically said as much when Amazon was developing The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, so…
New episodes of The Wheel of Time drop on Fridays.
Next. Ceara Coveney is having “so much fun” playing Elayne on The Wheel of Time. dark
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