The Wheel of Time ratings hold steady but don't compare to Amazon's biggest hit: Reacher

We here at WinterIsComing are fans of The Wheel of Time, both the books by Robert Jordan (finished by Brandon Sanderson) and the TV show adaptation on Amazon Prime Video. The Wheel of Time novels are modern classics of the fantasy genre, and it was past time that someone gave them a worthy adaptation. So far, Amazon is doing a solid job bringing to life Rand al'Thor's quest to embrace his destiny as the Dragon Reborn and defeat the Dark One.

Like showrunner Rafe Judkins, we want to see the entirety of The Wheel of Time books put to screen, which could take a while, since there are 14 door-stopping novels to get through in all. As of the end of season 2, the series has adapted the first three books, more or less, with a guaranteed third season on the way. Will the show get the eight or so seasons it will need to tell this story in its entirety?

That will depend on how many people are watching. The Wheel of Time is not a cheap show to make, and to justify spending money on it, Amazon needs to be assured that audiences are tuning in. So far, the show has done well. Redditor stateofdaniel has taken the Nielsen ratings for several Amazon shows from the past five months and plotted them out in a graph. Back when The Wheel of Time was airing episodes of its second season in September and October of 2023, the show was being watched for hundreds of millions of minutes each week, equaling billions of minutes total. Things dropped off after season 2 ended, but the show has held steady, and even got a bit of a bump in the new year, possibly thanks to an interview blitz Amazon arranged around the holiday season.

Nielsen recently put out ratings for the week of January 8-14, and Twitter user @TVGrimReaper drilled down to focus on the Amazon shows. For that week, The Wheel of Time was the second most watched show on the service, ahead of even a popular show like The Boys. Those are good numbers for a show that hasn't aired a new episode in months.

However, it's pretty clear what Amazon's new golden show is: Reacher, based on the Jack Reacher book series by Lee Child. While new episodes of The Wheel of Time did respectably well when they aired in September and October, new episodes of Reacher did spectacularly when they aired in January, usually clearing over a billion minutes watched every week. As stateofdaniel puts it, "The Wheel of Time is a hit; Reacher is a MEGA hit."

For The Wheel of Time fans, this news is both comforting and worrying. As we mentioned, The Wheel of Time is a pricey show to make; the story spans continents and takes place in a fantasy world, with dozens of characters criss-crossing the globe learning how to use expensive-looking magical powers. Reacher, on the other hand, is about a wandering ex-army guy who visits new places and solves problems. Its biggest special effect is star Alan Ritchson, whose hulking frame announces to everyone, "Don't mess with me." Who needs to channel when you have guns like that?

Basically, I worry that Amazon might look at the enormous success of a comparatively cheap-to-make show like Reacher and wonder what they're doing spending money creating a bespoke fantasy wonderland for The Wheel of Time. There are still good reasons to invest in The Wheel of Time — once they have several seasons under their belt, they'll have a fantasy epic with a scale and scope not many shows can compete with — but that will take time.

I think the show will get the time that it needs, but it helps me calm down if I exercise my worries on paper...well, on the internet, you know what I mean.

The Wheel of Time won't be back on our screens until 2025 at the earliest. There is another big-bugdet fantasy show returning to Amazon this year, though: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is coming back for a second season. Unlike The Wheel of Time, it didn't make the list of the top 10 most watched Amazon shows for the week of January 8-14.

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