For all that Amazon screams and shouts about The Rings of Power, its famously mega-budgeted adaptation of the earlier history of Middle-Earth from The Lord of the Rings, there are plenty of people and critics who will tell you that it actually has a much superior high fantasy epic right now.
Doing both the fall of Númenor from Tolkien's books and an adapation of Robert Jordan's famously massive series, The Wheel of Time, is one of those wild bits of timing that has you remembering just how deep Jeff Bezos' pockets really are (if that was ever in doubt). Now the latter show is about to return for a blockbuster third season, and just got a flashy new trailer ahead of its release on 13 March.
I have a complicated relationship with this show, to be honest – it's never quite grabbed me, which is a really close match to how I feel about the books. I've read the first three tomes of The Wheel of Time, and found them to be good fun but not necessarily the most memorable reads of my life (especially when compared with some other epic series – they're not even in the ballpark of Tolkien's best work).
Amazon knew that it couldn't afford to go at the same extremely leisurely pace that Jordan used in his books, though, and has been speeding through the major plot events without bothering with nearly so much padding between them. That makes the tone a lot more urgent, something that takes longer to build up in the novels. Still, it also leaves me unsure where exactly I should read to if I want to stay ahead of what the show will be covering this season, which is a niche problem but one I'm feeling nonetheless.
Still, I'm excited to see how this new season shapes up – it looks like the budget has arguably expanded, too. We get glimpses of big battles, magic fights and some brand new locations, as our motley cast of young heroes and wizened older fighters attempt to stem the forces of evil.
This is classic fantasy stuff, and I'm hoping that Amazon's expectations are met when it comes to viewership. After all, this is exactly the sort of epic mega-series that shouldn't be cut down midway through its run.
