[Scotty]

So I know that I'm not the only one for which the fact that there was apparently a Wheel of Time tv pilot that aired last night.  No, seriously.

Catch it on Youtube.

[The E]

Interesting to see that not even the people owning the rights knew about this.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Free wiki link for context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time

(correct me if I posted the wrong Wheel of Time page, because I've got no idea what that is).

[zookeeper]

Umm, what? That's obviously someone's school project, or a fan production, or similar.

[Scotty]

It aired on FXX and had some non-nobody actors last night so there's the chance it's slightly more than that.

[The E]

There was a more in-depth article about it on io9. Apparently, this thing was aired on FXX because FXX got paid to do it, and the producers behind it:

We spoke to Rick Selvage, CEO of Red Eagle Entertainment and the executive producer of Winter Dragon, who told us "it was more of an [issue of] getting it on the air."

Selvage had to be very careful about what he told us, but reading between the lines, it sounded as though his company has the rights to make a Wheel of Time TV series — but those rights were about to expire, unless they got something on television by a certain date.

"You probably know that a lot of pilots are put on the air at different times in different ways, and for different reasons," Selvage tells io9. As with "a lot of other properties, there's always an airdate that you need to air something by... and that was certainly part of it."

So given that the Film/TV rights were apparently set to revert to Bandersnatch (the company managing James O. Rigney's estate) on February 11th unless something was produced, this seems to be a small thing produced to keep the rights alive. It is a bit puzzling however that Universal wasn't involved, as Universal are the current rights holders.

[Kopachris]

u WoT m8 

[MP-Ryan]

You know, after seeing the way that Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth was butchered on TV (with the first 4 episodes being faithful to the first 1/8th of the book, then the remaining six episodes trying and failing to do justice to the remaining book), I have exactly ZERO desire to see the Wheel of Time made into any sort of television series.

For one, Jordan got progressively longer-winded through the middle books and I don't think it's possible to make an interesting TV series covering all the book material without heavy cutting/editing for content.  For two, a lot of the books wouldn't lend themselves to TV well given how much you're in the characters' heads.  Three, I don't think even if you tried to go all Game of Thronesy and do 1 book = just under one TV season that you'd be able to get it down to a reasonable length.

Some works of fiction simply don't need to be on TV.  WoT is among them.  Now, some of Brandon Sanderson's work (the fellow who finished off the series after Jordan's death) actually might, but not within the WoT universe.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, that was certainly a thing I just watched.