Amazon might now be making a bit more of a song and dance about its mega-budgeted Tolkein show The Rings of Power, but that wasn't actually its first outing into the fantasy genre. The first big tilt it had at recreating the success of franchises like Game of Thrones came a little earlier, in the form of The Wheel of Time.
This high-fantasy series adapts a massive sequence of novels, giving it masses of source material to draw on, and it's just received a teaser trailer ahead of a new third season. That season will start on 13 March 2025, according to the trailer, which gives us quite a long time to wait – a gap that shouldn't harm Amazon's claims to be the best streaming service for fantasy fans too badly.
The show picks up where it left off with Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) desperately trying to train the hero-elect Rand. He needs to be able to withstand the temptation and corruption that threatens both the world and himself, and neither of those things looks particularly guaranteed.
Away from their struggle, Rand's other childhood friends have their own journeys to continue on, with some of them dabbling in the darker arts themselves. The Forsaken, meanwhile, continue their machinations, and it all looks a bit pessimistic for the forces of light. Happily, though, it also looks really impressive visually, with some real flair evidenced even in such a short trailer.
There are the swirls of magic that will be so familiar from previous seasons, and a whole bunch more besides, including some glimpses of baddies that might make more sense to those who read the books. It all looks really fun, though, and will make it feel like a long few months waiting for the show.
If you're hoping I'll substantiate that punchy headline up above, too, don't worry. While, in reality, things are quite tight depending on your particular taste, I do think there's an easy case to be made that The Wheel of Time eclipses The Rings of Power. Both have critical scores in the 80% range from Rotten Tomatoes for their two seasons so far, but where things diverge is on the audience front.
The Rings of Power massively divided normal viewers, leaving it with an average audience score of just 49% over its two seasons at the time of writing. By contrast, The Wheel of Time has fared much better, sitting on 70%. This suggests that most fans agree it's the more consistent show, so if you're in the market for a new fantasy
