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Reviews
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium (2023)
Wasted Opportunity
How do you make a heroic quest super boring? Have 3 preteens chat in monotones for half an hour and occasionally flee from a stupid looking fury. The show didn't start off on the best foot (I feel like many of the character portrayals were botched, missing the essence of the characters from the books. The fun and goofy adventurous tone of the books have also been replaced with an awkward seriousness for some reason I cannot explain), but I've been hoping the series would get better. This episode didn't improve things. The encounter with Medussa should have been the highlight of the episode but turned out very bland, and her takedown was lame. Overall, the series has been disappointing, and this episode was awkward, lame, and boring. Triple threat.
The Wheel of Time (2021)
Not recommended for fans of the book series
I give this 5 stars because it does get better after the pilot. Unfortunately, by that time the pilot has already destroyed the characters and their arcs. Every character was mishandled. Rand and Egwene's relationship was just wrong. Perrin was married for some reason, then killed his wife. Matt is introduced as a low life thief. Plus they did Abell and Natti Cauthon so dirty. Many inconsistencies and just plain stupid scenes added. Why was Egwene pushed off a cliff into a river when she became a woman?! This is a small village, not a cult. I don't want to rant much more, so just know that there are many more issues. Doesn't make sense to call it the Wheel of Time, then immediately veer off into left field. I guess they just wanted to tap into the existing fan base. Only positive note is that I like how they depicted Moiraine using the one power. Might be an okay fantasy show for those who didn't read the books.
The Wheel of Time: Leavetaking (2021)
You probably won't enjoy if you've read the books
I wanted to give it one star, but needed to give props for the special effects. They portrayed the weaving of the one power better than I expected. Watching Moiraine wield Saidar against the trollocs was actually pretty awesome. The real problem here is with the writing. It comes across as a bad WOT parody. None of the characters were true to their book versions in any way. There were also so many random, meaningless, and nonsensical things thrown in and changed. I won't mention anything specific to prevent spoilers, but I spent the whole episode saying things like "why?", "what the heck?", and "that is so wrong". I get that some things had to be tweaked for the medium, but I question whether any of the writers even opened a WOT book. I definitely would've preferred a more faithful retelling of the books.