Amazon says Wheel Of Time is its most-watched premiere of 2021
The series stars Rosamund Pike as a magic user trying to track down the man who might be able to save the world
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Once, in the distant past of the First Age Of Streaming—i.e., 2017 or so—the Merchant Tyrant Jeff Bezos issued a proclamation to his hundreds of thousands of digital serfs: “Make me a Game Of Thrones, to better embiggen my Amazon empire.”
And lo, did the content creators toil to fulfill their Dark Lord’s edict. Rights were purchased, billions were spent, New Zealand tax arrangements were arranged. And while much of the focus of the Bezosian Conquest was on Amazon’s eventual Lord Of The Rings show—still expected to be among the most expensive TV series ever produced—that return trip to Middle-Earth did have a fantasy adaptation forerunner, of sorts: The streamer’s glossy spin on Robert Jordan’s The Wheel Of Time, which debuted on Amazon earlier this month.
And while the Rosamund Pike-fronted series has yet to achieve a true Game Of Thrones stranglehold so far (i.e., a complete domination over the cultural conversation for years at a time), it has at least succeeded at its more basic pursuits.
That is, Uproxx reports that Wheel Of Time’s first episode, “Leavetaking,” has now become Amazon’s most-watched premiere of the year, and one of its top five launches of all time. (Take that, Comrade Detective!)
As with any and all numbers released by a streaming service—who, we frequently like to remind you, only release this stuff when they think it makes them look good—you should take this info with a grain of salt. Still, it makes a kind of sense: Wheel Of Time feels splashy and big, a far cry from, say, the slightly tawdry debut of this year’s also-Amazon-produced I Know What You Did Last Summer. People respond to something that has orcs (sorry, “trollocs”) rubbing elbows with a bit of class.
“There were tens and tens of millions of streams,” Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke asserted in a recent Deadline interview about the series’ prospects. (The show has already been renewed for a second season.) Salke also noted that the three released episode of the show logged some of the “highest completion rates on the service ever.”
Wheel Of Time is currently airing its first season on Amazon Prime. It’ll wrap that season on December 24.
27 Comments
Impressive how quickly Game of Thrones vanished from the scene and public conversation.
Yet here you are talking about it in public. Irony.
I’m doing my best to hold back the inevitable march of entropy.Entropy just moved a bit faster than expected in this case.
I think the (good) memories of GoT are what’s driving viewership up in this series. I remember the run up to that series being released, and though there was a lot of excitement and it did very good numbers, it sounds like this is still dwarfing it. So much of GoT viewership came somewhere in the middle of the series off of word of mouth, and there’s got to be a lot of people out there who don’t want to miss the beginning of the next big thing. I guess we’ll see if they stick around, but it’s probably good news that completion rates were so high.
I was worried because a lot of what made Game of Thrones so popular is not that it was a great show but that the first episode ended with [spoilers I guess] Bran being pushed out the window. It’s probably one of the greatest cliffhangers in TV history. Wheel of Time doesn’t really have a moment like that in the first book, and I’m not sure if there’s really anything in the first three books(That they’re reportedly pulling from) that has quite the same season ending power that Ned’s death did. Timing wise, I’m thinking the fifth or sixth episode might have some good stuff, but I’m struggling to see how they end this season in a way that leaves people really wanting to see what comes next.
I feel like the ending of TEotW is absolutely ripe for change (especially with how confusing it is even on the page and how certain early things were more or less one offs and weird first book-isms), and I think there’s some pretty fun stuff you can do there. We already know that the Caemlyn stuff is moved to S2 (because you can’t cast like 6-7 fairly big characters for 2 scenes and then not use them for 2~5 years), so it’s very possible that stuff gets pulled forward as well for juicy moments. With Rafe specifically saying they are adapting the series as a whole rather than book by book, it really opens things up to move some stuff around as needed to tell the story.
I believe it continues to be one of HBO’s most-watched shows. There’s a ton of people either rewatching it or still coming to it fresh.
The last season of GOT ruined it. If it had stuck the landing, we might still be talking about itThat aside, this show is no GOT, it’s barely above the Shannara Chronicles
I’ll watch Rosamund Pike read the phone book.
I could have sworn I tried to access this show sometime yesterday but it wouldn’t play YET. These are some incredibly confident claims for something that has only been available for 24 hours. But I absolutely understand that this site is having to *blogify their advertising now.*To incorporate paying sponsors into the body of a blog – **tangentially or thematically.”**I made up this definition.
24 hours? The first 3 episodes were all made available a week ago (11/18). Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean though.
You’re not. He has no idea what he’s talking about.
Tell us you don’t have no clue you know what you’re talking about without telling us you don’t know what you are talking about.
More like Amazon’s most-watched-until-it-bored-me-to-sleep premiere of 2021. 😀
“Most watched premiere” for a brand new show is more of a marketing victory than anything else, and I don’t care much about marketing victories. Stats on the second episode would be much more interesting.
Considering episodes 1-3 were launched simultaneously, I’d say episode 4 is the key one. Personally, I’m looking forward to ep. 4 as I thought the episodes got better as they went on. There was some necessary exposition, but I think it’s got some legs now (edit: especially since Thom Merrilin has been introudced).
I’m going to come back to this, but can’t lie… I added to those completion rates by falling asleep 20mins in and waking up for the episode three credits :/The 20mins I watched seemed decent enough, and Pike is a pro.
LOL I did that twice. I did enjoy it on the 3rd viewing even if the whole thing has a bit too much of a Lord of the rings vibe so far.
I’m glad they released 3 episodes, because the first wasn’t terribly strong. It got better with eps 2 and 3. I might not have stuck around if there was only the first to go off of.
I’ve never read the books and despite the orc things feeling more silly than scary, I actually really enjoyed this. It’s really good at building tension and has been pretty basic to follow. It was a good call they hired Rosamund Pike, otherwise I wouldn’t have started.
would you consider it ‘premier tv’ a la most hbo (not hbo max) shows? the previews made it look cheap and corny to me, like something that would be on the CW or the sword of shannara tv series
somewhere in between, some things look really expensive and then the next scene not so much. I’d say after the first corny 40 minutes of the first episode the show definitely finds its footing, which is pretty quick for a new show.
They definitely didn’t have the budget for all the CG they tried to do, but the location work, practical effects, and hybrid stuff like the monsters look good. Choreography is not great. It’s like a very awkward Witcher, kind of. I’m not sure why Amazon would make a headline high fantasy series then limit the budget so much. The acting is definitely better than the stuff you describe, though.
Let’s see how long that audience sticks around, it was rubbish.
I didn’t think the premiere was very good. Rosamund Pike is a fine actress but a lot of the cast look like they could be starring in She’s All That. Fantasy or not, you have to at least try to make your show look like a medieval piece…
Kinda watchable, despite Pike’s lackluster performance in the first episode, I’d say.
The trollocs were amazingly realistic, the highlight of episode 1. They should have hired the same CGI team to do the teenagers.
If I were Rosamund Pike, I’d demand a producing role for the next season. The costumes and scenery are Xena-level and it’s super-awkward whenever there’s a close-up.
The scripts and acting aren’t anything to write home about, other than her and her bodyguard, but I don’t know how much of that is due to the source material.
But the show should look a lot better than it does. If all the characters look like they’re wearing brand-new clothing (and they do) and the not-Roma folks’ wagons looks like they were painted by the set designers for a high school musical (and they do), the production needs to hire much better people — even basic competence is affordable and better than what they’ve got now.