Amazon Prime’s fantasy epic The Wheel of Time fails to enchant

If I had a pound for every show touted as the next Game of Thrones, I could have built my own streaming empire by now. Britannia (psychedelic savagery in ancient Britain) and The Witcher (monster-hunting cringe-fest) are among the recent action-adventure series to have struggled to set the world alight. But commissioning editors clearly live in hope, hence the existence of The Wheel of Time, a lavish eight-parter based on the novels by the American author Robert Jordan. It’s a measure of Amazon’s confidence in the project that a second season is already in production. We can only hope that in the next one they do something about Rosamund Pike’s daft wig.

Pike plays Lady Moiraine, part of the Aes Sedai, a society of sorceresses trained at the White Tower of Tar Valon. Women have the whip hand in this world that was previously broken by men after they gave in to the forces of darkness, prompting seas to boil and cities to be obliterated. But an ancient prophecy reveals the destiny of a young man known as the Dragon Reborn who has the capacity to defeat evil, although — plot twist! — he doesn’t know it yet. And so, having pledged to “find him before the dark does”, Moiraine and her companion, Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney), pitch up at a tavern in Two Rivers, where, in time-honoured fashion, silence falls, tankards are set down and a crowd of extras engage in some ferocious staring.

To further complicate matters, an army of Trollocs — picture a horned and heavily-armed Bungle from the children’s TV series Rainbow — are rampaging across the land, razing villages and feasting on human innards. Despite being fierce warriors, Trollocs are afraid of deep water and cannot swim. For some reason, no one has thought to dig a moat.

The usual markers of the modern swords-and-sorcery epic are here: warring tribes, journeys through inhospitable lands and a horrible explosion of hemp. But while there is enough violence and faux-mysticism to keep genre fans happy, convincing human interactions are harder to find. The rare stabs at levity — “They say all roads lead there,” says one weary soul on his way to the White Tower, “That’s not how roads work,” replies his companion — are all but cancelled out by the po-faced dialogue and endless freaking out about wolves, dreams and dark forces. Life is tough for the denizens of this ancient and unnamed world — but would it kill them to crack a smile occasionally?

★★☆☆☆

Available on Amazon Prime from November 19

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