TV review: The Wheel of Time is literally not dirty enough to be the next Game of Thrones
The Wheel of Time with Rosamund Pike
Alcohol use.
That’s one of the few warnings they flash up at the start of (Amazon Prime Video ). So straight away we know it’s not going to be the next . ( Alcohol was well down page two on the list of triggers in . )
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I have never once liked a show that’s heralded as ‘the next’ version of a big hit. You can nearly see the marketing people writing the script.
This didn’t happen here because the book behind was written before .
It’s a kind of fantasy who-is-it. Once upon a time in a far-off matriarchal society — run by women after the men ruined everything thanks to a character called The Dragon — there is talk that The Dragon has been re-incarnated into a new body.
Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) is head of the sisterhood and arrives into a village to find which one of the locals is The Dragon 2.
It feels more like than anything else.
The main problem is that it isn’t dirty enough. And no, I don’t mean it lacks the gratuitous saucy scenes in where everyone was wearing a whole bottle of olive oil.
I mean, it’s literally not dirty enough. The village that Moiraine visits feels like Valley of the Hipsters, where good-looking 20-somethings wander around a spotless town in carefully curated vintage outfits. It feels like a Center Parcs take on an ancient fantasy village high in the mountains — I couldn’t see any smells.
The villagers are having a lovely dance when these monsters with curly horns arrive out of nowhere and start killing all around them. There is no suspense, just 10 minutes of CGI action straight out of a video game, before Moiraine pulls a bit of magic and turns the tide in favour of the good-looking hipsters.
I only met the hipsters 30 minutes earlier, so I don’t care who lives or dies. They seem sad that some friends and family die at the hands of the curly horned monsters, but not as sad as they’d be if their latest haircut didn’t quite work. Moiraine says some of them have to leave and head to somewhere called The White Tower.
They head off on their good-looking horses as a Moiraine voice-over reels off some standard fantasy narrative about wheels turning, without beginning or end. I think the ‘alcohol use’ message at the start was really a piece of advice, because you could do with a drink to get involved in .
None of this is aimed at adults who liked , because we know a thrilling, witty, sprawling epic when we see one. I guess it’s aimed at a younger audience who want with a bit more romance. If that’s you, and you’re not triggered by people on the piss, this might be for you.
