This past Friday, Amazon and Sony canceled The Wheel of Time, their ongoing adaption of Robert Jordan's epic fantasy book series. We were fans of the show here, especially the recent third season, so we are not pleased. Also not pleased: Priyanka Bose, who played Alanna, an Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah. Posting on her Instagram Stories, Bose shared an altered image of the Lanfear-vs-Moiraine fight from the season 3 finale. Lanfear is strangling a struggling Moiraine, only over Moiraine's face, someone has superimposed the Prime Video logo.
The image is no longer on Bose's Instagram Stories, but the internet remembers:
Other cast members have posted about the cancelation; generally, they've been a lot gentler than Bose, mostly thanking everyone involved and mourning the loss. But I don't think Bose is being untoward here; she's just having a little fun.
I imagine fans can relate. I'm sure a lot of them are pretty mad at Prime Video right now! Amazon and Sony committed to making The Wheel of Time show at a time when adapting high fantasy books was all the rage. The Wheel of Time series runs for 14 books, so it was always going to be a marathon getting them adapted in full. The show improved year after year, with the recent third season being easily the best yet. To cut the show off just when it's really finding its footing feels especially galling.
At the same time, it's not like I don't understand why Amazon and Sony would look at The Wheel of Time, measure how much money they were spending on it versus how much they were making, and decide it wasn't worth continuing. But I think it would have been better to take a long view. The first season of the show was seriously hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic but still turned out good enough to attract an audience; the second season was better and the third better still. The show was on an upward trajectory. There's every reason to think it would have kept improving, which would have benefited Amazon and Sony in the long run. At the end, they would have had an exclusive, prestigious adaptation of one of the most popular high fantasy book series of all time.
But what's done is done, unless some other streaming service or network swoops in and continues the show. Stranger things have happened, and the show's passionate fans won't rest until they explore every avenue:
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