Game of Thrones successor? From The Witcher to Wheel of Time, upcoming fantasy TV shows
- Thanks to the success of Game of Thrones, the final series of which is out this month, TV executives have been raiding bookshelves for new titles to take on
- Wheel of Time, The Witcher, His Dark Materials: the list of upcoming shows is long, but success could lie in giving audiences something different
Rand al’Thor was found as a baby on the slopes of Dragonmount and taken to Two Rivers, where he grew into a broad-shouldered shepherd boy. But Rand is possessed of immense power, a power as yet untapped, for he is also The Dragon Reborn, destined to be hunted by Darkhounds and Darkfriends as he bids to prove himself a mighty warrior leader.
Among other things, Rand’s existence shows that you should always believe ancient prophesies, that even the low-born can save the world – and that characters in TV fantasy series must always have two names.
Rand is just one of the 2,782 characters who appear in Wheel of Time, the bestselling saga of fantasy novels by Robert Jordan. We can only hope the forthcoming adaptation on Amazon will hone the cast down a little, as we follow Rand and his forces towards Tarmon Gai’don, or the final battle between good and evil.
We’re going to see a lot of Rand and his like over the next few years, thanks to the all-slaying success of Game of Thrones, which returns for its final series this month and then is no more. TV executives, aware for some time that the enormous appetite for fantasy series will not disappear after the Iron Throne has seated its final backside, have been raiding the bookshelves for weighty tomes to take on.
With Netflix adapting The Witcher, the cult series by Andrzej Sapkowski about supernatural monster-hunter Geralt of Rivia, and Amazon making big-budget plans for a new take on JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the years ahead are going to be dominated by a genre previously belittled, mocked or ignored.
“Game of Thrones didn’t just open the door to more fantasy commissions,” says US TV critic Maureen Ryan. “It opened the floodgates. I honestly believe that the two biggest things to happen to TV in the last decade were the runaway successes of Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. It told TV executives not just to pursue fantasy books or comics – but to gobble them up.”