Dave Hartley

I really wanted to love this, big fan of the books and was really excited about seeing what elements of the fantasy world Jordan had created matched my imagination when I read the series. But I'm struggling. As a fan of the books the reviews are right, it doesn't really follow the storyline and a few things are just made up, I imagine to add more acute character development but it still feels pretty shallow. Just a few things, Perrin isn't married to a mute blacksmith, he is actually an apprentice blacksmith who gives him an axe which has an important storyline, Matt's dad isn't a drunk - he's part of the village council and a good man, Matt is a rouge-ish character and not a criminal. The way he was brought up is important to how he gets himself into scrapes further on. There are others but I don't want to give spoilers. The whitecloaks scene was a mangle of 2 or 3 whitecloak storylines. Lan's relationship with the boys is important but non existent in the TV series. Sheinar is in the snow not the desert (I don't know why but this bugged me). Lan is also way too emotional, he is as expressionate as a rock and the emotional outbursts you do read are a real shock, it felt diluted. There are 3 taveren not 5 but I'm ok with this development. Knowing the books could make this worse but for me it felt quite protracted and a bit chaotic, seemed to bounce around alot and I felt my knowledge of the books was the only reason I could follow it. Be interesting to read a non readers perspective. Things I loved where that you couldn't tell the age of moiraine from episode to episode - a characteristic of aes sedai. The Aiel scene is truly fantastic, first episode the trollocs look great and truly scary. I love how inclusive the cast is, feels like the first show where it's not an exclusively white cast - well done guys. Summary is I felt the books are good enough to make this great, why take an award winning "script" and mash it?