Brief Story Line
Set in the fantasy world where magic exist, Moiraine (Rosamund Pike - I Care a Lot, A Private War etc) who was part of an elite group of women with magical power called Aes Sedai was searching for a potential dragon reincarnation, referred to as Dragon Reborn. It is prophesized that this Dragon could either end or start a war. Together with her warder Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney - Big Hero 6, Criminal Minds TV series etc), Moiraine went to the small village of Two Rivers where she was informed there were 4 people in their early 20s who might be the Dragon Reborn.
They were Rand (Josha Stradowski), Egwene (Madeleine Madden - Dora and the Lost City of Gold etc), Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) and Mat (Barney Harris). Meanwhile the village Wisdom named Nynaeve (Zoë Robins - Power Rangers Ninja Steel TV series etc) thought Egwene could be the next Wisdom and wanted to start teaching her the channeling. Things started to become serious for these young people of Two Rivers when the armies of the Dark One were also looking for the Dragon.
So what would happen to them all? You can find out in this exciting first season series.
End of Brief Story Line
When watching this kind of fantasy series, the first episode would always be the decisive factor for me. If it was interesting enough, I would definitely continue but if I felt it was not really exciting or even boring, I might stop watching it or only proceeding with the hope it would get better. This series started quite well and I think it was also helped by the immediate appearance of familiar faces (Pike & Henney). The introduction of the people were pretty standardly done, but the best thing that could happen did occur in the final 10-15 minutes. It was totally breathtaking and I was hooked by the series straight away.
From that moment on, there was always a tremendous tribulation for all the characters. Till the mid of the season, each episode mostly ended with amazing intense scenes, with the 4th episode being the best of it all to my opinion. However, the subsequent episodes had slower pace where it focused on the characters development plus some kind of power struggle in the White Tower. Not until it reached the mid of 7th episode that the story started to pick up the pace and having a really strong finale. It was weird though that audience did not seem to like the 8th episode, where for me it had a great ending and raised my interest for an exciting second season.
What made me liked the series a lot aside from the intensity in most of the episodes was seeing the magic used during fight between the good vs evil as they always made me in awe. The directors of the series also liked to use slow motion during certain fight scenes to enhance the Wow feeling. In addition, the special effects were generally wonderful too. Another factor that was truly awesome was the costumes. I think the costume department did a really great job. The series definitely look to have a high production value. And from what I read, it was highly regarded by critics and the viewership was a lot for Prime Video as well, which was understandable after I watch the series myself.
This series was based on The Wheel of Time novel series (consisted of 14 novels) written by the late Robert Jordan. The last 3 novels were finished by Brandon Sanderson based on the plots detail that were shared by Robert to his family prior to his demise. I really hope that this TV series would continue till the end of the whole story line, otherwise it would be truly disappointing. The series was developed by Rafe Judkins (writer of TV series such as My Own Worst Enemy, Chuck and few others). He also served as co-executive producers with Rosamund Pike served as producer.
In addition to the main cast mentioned above, this series also has several names as series regular, such as Kate Fleetwood (Hartlots TV series etc) as a red Sedai named Liandrin, Priyanka Bose (The Good Karma Hospital TV series etc) as Alanna a green Sedai, Sophie Okondeo (Dirty Pretty Things etc) as Amyrlin Seat leader of Aes Sedai and few others. However, their appearances only started a bit later and hence their screen time were lesser than the rest. Nevertheless, their presence were crucial for the story development, and particularly Kate Fleetwood whom I thought was suitable as Liandrin.
Overall to me this was a fantastic fantasy series. It has all the ingredients I like in this genre, from the strong magical presence, amazing fights with creatures and even a full on war, with exciting story & engaging characters plus great special effects. Almost every episode was brilliantly done and suspenseful with an ending that truly excite me. So if you are looking for a nice fantasy series with such attributes, then you can get them all in here. Beware though if you want brutal violence and full frontal nudity like in other fantasy series, you would not find them here as it did not have such scenes.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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