In this Amazon Prime show based on the popular fantasy series by Robert Jordan, several inhabitants of a small village are hunted by dark forces as one of them may be the Dragon Reborn, basically a gussied up title for a "chosen one."
I have very mixed feelings about this. At times the story is pretty good. You've got a lot of world building with interesting characters, customs, and places. Events can be pretty exciting at points. Some of the middle episodes are particularly engaging.
The problem is that not every decision or scene knocks it out of the park. The show suffers a little from the post-Game of Thrones era in that the writers automatically feel that awful stuff happening to people and killing off random civilians automatically equals good story telling. Don't get me wrong, it's not like the books were violence free and sunshine and butterflies, they just weren't trying too hard to be mature. In the show's defense, it doesn't go straight up obviously grim and kill-happy like the Shannara adaptation and that mature Wizard of Oz show did.
I don't hate the ending as much as some people, but it is a let down. After following the characters' journey for eight episodes, the finale does not make me feel like it was worth it. It just kind of ends saying "you better stay tuned for the next season" without feeling like anything of substance happened. Yeah, the ending of the first book (which I believe this first season is based on) served as a setup to the next book, but it actually felt like an ending with a satisfying conclusion.
Show looks nice. Kind of wish it was more colorful, but that just may be because I remember the design of the original book covers, and that may be an unfair comparison. Solid costume fantasy world building design. Nothing too standout, but a show like this probably costs a lot of money, and you can only do so much.
I don't know if I can recommend this or not. This is one of those shows where I definitely see people having higher or lower opinions than me on this. There are legitimate arguments for saying this is either bad or good. It couldn't hurt to check this show out and see if you like it, but it doesn't need to be an immediate watch.
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