Jack Wiken

I came in with low expectations and was still pretty disappointed. The writing is really poor and isn't a good adaptation of the books. It wouldn't have to rush through the first book if the writers hadn't tried to weave their own story which is much less engaging than the source material. Proud writers think they can do better than a best selling novel and ended up creating a generic, shallow fantasy. Episodes 4 and 5 and a good deal of the other episodes are completely their own plots, not Robert Jordan's. It feels more like plagiarism that honest adaptation. The writers took the foundation of the world to gain fan recognition than made their own poorly written project. Additionally, the world building is really poor. For example, the sets and props do not look realistic, the magic has poor CGI and in a world where each region is defined by distinct people groups, the show has decided to make each medieval village a "melting pot" of cast members. This last point becomes more important in the series future as certain characters stick out in different regions and drive the plot along. More representation is a good thing but make it make sense! For example, have everyone from the Two Rivers (with one exception I won't say for spoilers) look like a homogenous people group. The positives are that each actor does a great job with the poor plot they were given. Also, the trollocs and fades look pretty cool. I am also a fan of the intro animation (though it seems a little close to GoT's intro style).