Prithvi Shiv

A terrible adaption of the book series. While it's understandable that certain concessions need to be made when televising what's essentially a super lengthy series of hard fantasy books, what beggars beliefs is the amount of unnecessary changes that have been made to it, which not only do nothing for the plot, but terribly undermine the essence of what made the series great in the first place. Without going into too many spoilers, let's just say that the important bit of the first book (eye of the world) have been condensed into a politically correct mishmash of underwhelming plot gaffes. It sometimes meanders, sometimes gallops, but never does any of this coherently enough to connect you to the characters and their story loops meaningfully. And it all culminates in the super disappointing season finale, which looks like it came from a new book written by show writers with little or nothing to do with original series. If you are going to call it wheel of time, you might need to take a relook at how much of the story you can reinvent before it becomes the spiel of time. As a long time fan of the series, I had really been looking forward to this being finally televised, but this was such a let down that I won't probably watch season 2. What a waste of potential IMO. If you haven't read the books, this is still a sorry letdown nonetheless just in terms of even the simplest things like plot continuity and character building has not been done properly. The original book series was IMO way better than the songs of fire and ice on which the game of thrones is based, but that has much better production value than this. Granted there are some bright spots, Rosemund Pike and Kate Fleetwood being the exceptions to the generally tedious plodding narrative and acting, but alas even their immense talent isn't enough to salvage what is essentially a new fantasy series with no bearings whatsoever to the book series apart from a few loose references.

Caveat: Don't go watch this expecting hard science fiction. This is not made of Dilithium and things warped. Science fiction (I say science fiction but that;s putting it loosely) is just a prop, it isn't really meant to serve as the spine of the narrative, rather it contributes to the many subtle twists of story telling. Think of it like Chekhov meets Guy De Maupassant and add a bit of science fiction bordering on magic. Science surrealism anyone? Now getting on to the show itself- Beautiful. That's the only word to describe this amazing series. The slowness with which the stories are narrated stays with you long after the last credits have rolled. It maybe pretend to be science fiction, but it's more the story of everyday people caught in situations which aren't so everyday. You can almost taste the snow and smell the grassy meadows featured in the series. And the music beautifully brings all of it together. It isn't about sadness or happiness, it's far more nuanced than that. It's the human condition in all it's myriad hues connecting with you like very few stories can and have.