The Wheel Of Time feels stuck

After a promising second season, Prime Video’s fantasy epic returns to its all-too-dense ways.

By Christina Izzo | March 11, 2025 | 9:00am

Photo: Prime

TV Reviews The Wheel of Time

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The last time viewers took a spin on The Wheel Of Time—Prime Video’s high-fantasy show adapted from the sprawling book series of the same name by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson—Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski) officially fulfilled his destiny and, in a festively fiery display by Rosamund Pike’s Moiraine Damodred, was publicly declared the Dragon Reborn after killing the series’ big bad, Ishamael (Fares Fares). Successfully battling the White Cloaks and the Seanchan through the streets of Falme in that action-packed season-two finale, our protagonist bunch of Rand, Egwene (Madeleine Madden), Perrin (Marcus Rutherford), Nynaeve (Zoë Robins), and Mat (Dónal Finn) had themselves a much-anticipated Two Rivers reunion after a season’s worth of separation. All was seemingly good in this corner of fantasyland.

But, of course, the wheel keeps spinning and with it must come even more mystical baddies to vanquish and long-standing prophecies to fulfill. (That shouldn’t be a surprise to readers of The Wheel Of Time novels, of which there are 14, including a prequel and two companion books.) When we pick up with Rand & co. in the third season of the show, they’re strategizing how to deal with not one but a dozen Forsaken, who were released from their seals by Ishamael before his death. (Well, they’re mostly doing that—Mat is also reveling in his new status as the Hornblower and snarking that the White Tower looks like a male appendage.)

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And that’s not to mention all of the other dark forces and deplorable figures coming out of the shadows for season three. One of the new episodes’ most thrilling and violent confrontations sees Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood) and the rest of the Black Ajah—the Aes Sedai who have secretly pledged themselves to the Dark One—reveal their true allegiance in exceptionally gory fashion to Siuan Sanche (Sophie Okonedo) and the sitters in the Hall Of The Tower. After serving up enough bloody carnage to make Wes Craven gleeful (one sitter gets halved magician-style from an especially gnarly weave), the Black Ajah are officially on the loose—as are the Forsaken, the White Cloaks, and seemingly everyone who wants a piece of the Dragon.

It’s dense stuff, especially if you’re not an avid reader of the source material, what with the action of the eight episodes yet again stretched across a few too many players and settings. Along with a return to the Two Rivers and visits to fan-favorite cities like Tanchico and Rhuidean, we’re spending time in the desert region of Aiel Waste this go round, though, thankfully, as with the show’s upgraded visual effects, those stunning landscapes feel significantly more cinematic than in previous editions.

Where season two simultaneously pulled from the second and third books of the novel series, the events of the third season are largely adapted from only one title, Jordan’s fourth book, The Shadow Rising. The season shifts the stories of both Rutherford’s Perrin and Stradowski’s Rand to the forefront, with Perrin returning to the Two Rivers to protect his homeland and help the townspeople caught between the Trollocs and the White Cloaks and Rand setting off on a perilous journey to the Aiel Waste with Moiraine, Egwene, Lan (Daniel Henney), and Aviendha (Ayoola Smart.) (The focus on those young men doesn’t mean the show’s female actors don’t get their time to shine, as Kate Fleetwood, Madeleine Madden, Sophie Okonedo, and Natasha O’Keeffe—as Lanfear, the sultry Forsaken who keeps creeping into Rand’s dreams—all put in strong work this season, though it would have been nice if Rosamund Pike had a bit more to do than look desert-chic in a straw sun hat.)

The perspective shift is certainly a boon to Rand, who has oddly felt like a side character for the past two seasons despite possessing a legacy that will make or break the entire realm. Sadly, though, it’s Rand’s trajectory this season that makes The Wheel Of Time pale in comparison to its similarly epic competition, mostly because of how closely, and less fruitfully, it parallels other genre giants. Fantasy fans already got a desert-set messianic masterpiece last year with Dune: Part Two, which was also centered on a young hero born into a great destiny beyond his understanding who has to wrestle against dark temptations for the good of his world. What’s more, Stradowski is a bit too sunny to conjure up the same level of slow-burn malevolence and moral anguish that Dune’s Timothée Chalamet achieves with Paul Atreides.

But The Wheel Of Time franchise has always had to unfairly contend with comparisons to other fantastical enterprises, even on its own streamer. (Prime Video is also home to The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power.) It felt like the adaptation was finally finding its footing in season two, less encumbered to the page and more so to possibility. But this time around, the expansions of this world come off like a ticked-off checklist, an assuage-the-readers inventory of settings, cultures, and villains, with our hero’s journey feeling certainly designed but not entirely earned. Rand’s story can either save this world or break it—and right now, The Wheel Of Time has a few spokes loose.

The Wheel Of Time season three premieres March 13 on Prime Video