We here at WinterIsComing have fallen pretty hard for The Wheel of Time over the past several weeks. There are a couple of reasons for that. To start, the current third season of the show is easily the best yet, with series-best episodes coming one after another. The show was always fun, but it's finally living up to the pedigree of The Wheel of Time book series by Robert Jordan, one of the most beloved epic fantasy series to ever be published.
Second, the show has an underdog arc going for it. Despite effusive praise from critics and rising enthusiasm from fans, we have yet to hear whether The Wheel of Time will be back for a fourth season, let alone a fith, sixth or eighth; the book series is famously long, and showrunner Rafe Judkins will need a lot of runway to tell the whole thing. We're looking for any good news we can.
Happily, it's trickling in. TV Line has Nielsen ratings data for the week of March 10, when The Wheel of Time season 3 premiered on Prime Video. When it comes to TV ratings, Nielsen is the most reliable source out there, and according to them, The Wheel of Time was watched for 534 million minutes for that week. That's up from the 515 million minutes watched for the season 2 premiere episodes in 2023.
So The Wheel of Time managed to improve on its season 2 ratings despite heated competition. In its season 3 debut week, The Wheel of Time had to compete with the likes of Adolescence, which has taken Netflix audiences by storm; and Reacher, the biggest show on Prime Video.
And although we don't have hard figures on this, I'm betting that the ratings have held steady or improved as the third season of The Wheel of Time has gone on, given that so much of it has been excellent. We do have some indirect evidence for that. According to Flix Patrol, which synthesizes streaming data from all over the world, The Wheel of Time is the number one most-watched show on Prime Video in no less than 23 countries today, including Australia, France, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Spain, and India, which is the most populous country on the planet. Also, it looks like the show was number one in the U.S. at some point in the recent past, although when I look right this moment it's at number two, a movie I've never heard of called G20.
So it looks like the numbers are good. Does this mean Amazon and Sony renew the series? There are still contracts to be signed and plans to make, but I'm getting more and more optimistic.
While we wait for an announcement, we have one more episode of The Wheel of Time season 3 to enjoy: the season 3 finale airs this Thursday on Prime Video.
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