Prime Video today announced the cancellation of its critically-acclaimed fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, after three seasons. Entertainment Weekly corroborated the decision for the cancellation on account of the show’s large price tag. Even with more than 100 million viewers around the globe by the end of its third season, the cost became untenable.
Based on Robert Jordan’s best-selling book series “The Wheel of Time” transports you to a contemporary world filled with magical adventure. It focuses on Moiraine Damodred, an incredibly strong sorceress of the Aes Sedai. Her personal journey is mainly focused on locating and training the Dragon Reborn, a key figure to the series’ plot. Having debuted in 2021, it’s since become Prime Video’s most successful debut of an original series. It captured the imaginations of people both young and old with its complex narrative and deep world-building.
The show ruled the ratings during its third season. It was unable to keep a place on Nielsen’s Top 10 Originals chart, disappearing the quickest of all past seasons. This drop undoubtedly contributed to how CBS executives made the ultimate decision to pull the show.
Rafe Judkins, showrunner of The Wheel of Time, was vocal about his displeasure with the cancelation. He felt like the show was strong enough that it could build on itself over multiple seasons. He stated, “One of the great things about Wheel of Time the book series is that it is sort of a reverse Game of Thrones. It gets better as it goes on. So that’s what television is always about, is getting better as you go… The great shows of television past really hit their stride in season 3 and 4, and I think that’s what this show in this series has the potential to do, and just keep getting better from here. So we’re all very eager to continue this story and finish it.”
Judkins explained that by the end of the third season, they’d really set the table well for the big arcs. This narrative will be based on the sixth book in that series. He remarked, “I can say that we’ve put a lot of pieces in place at the end of season 3 to tell some of the most iconic stories from book six, which is a really important book in the series.”
The cancellation is a double blow for fans. They did not just accept The Wheel of Time as an adaptation, no, they welcomed it as a new introduction into Jordan’s more cherished world. As audiences watch Moiraine and her friends train to overcome dark powers, they’re left with more questions than answers. Their thirst for more stories from this incredible universe only continues to deepen.
