Why Did Amazon Just Cancel A 97% Scored Prime Video Show?

This article was published on 5/24 and republished on 5/25.

Streaming services work in mysterious ways, and it was indeed pretty stunning on Friday when it was announced that Amazon Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time was canceled, and would not be returning for a fourth season.

The show had just seemed to find its groove. Season 1 had an 81% score and season 2 had an 86% score, but season 3? A stellar 97% critic score which you rarely see, especially on Amazon. So what happened here? A few things, supposedly:

• Viewership: While we don’t have exact numbers, we know that even with a great third season, the show’s viewership dipped enough to get into this knife’s edge situation.
• Cost: That’s the eternal ratio, viewership to cost. The first two seasons of The Wheel of Time reportedly cost $260 million. If we’re extrapolating that out, the exceptionally large-score, VFX-heavy series could have taken that total to $390 million if not more, and it would likely hit half a billion dollars if it returned for season 4. Compare that to viewership, and there you go.
• An Ending: The Wheel of Time books effectively run forever, so it was unclear when a stop point might be. Allegedly the third season was supposed to be designed as a sort of ending if this did happen, but having watched the final, I don’t get that impression at all.

In a now poorly aged article, I wrote that there shouldn’t be much to worry about in terms of the series getting a fourth season. Part of that was based on the confidence of the cast and showrunner. Here’s Josha Stradowski (Rand al’Thor) last month:

“Yeah, we’re confident that a fourth season will be greenlit.”

Then Rafe Judkins on his conversations with Amazon:

“That is the same thing that I’ve been sort of asking Amazon. What is the end game for the show? I really want to deliver this full series, so how do we best do that?”

Fans began to panic in recent weeks as cast members and the showrunner started sharing a fan-created “renew Wheel of Time” petition for season 4, implying they too were not worried about it. It turns out everyone was right to worry, as here we are.

It’s frustrating for fans because Amazon is also airing The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, its billion-dollar fantasy series that has had a lukewarm reception and its viewership reportedly dropped by half from season 1 to season 2. It was renewed for season 3, albeit this cancellation of a high-budget family show does raise questions about whether Rings of Power will be able to get to its supposed five-season plan.

So, Wheel of Time fans are sad, book-readers who didn’t like the adaption didn’t care, but with a stellar third season, I’d consider this a tragedy.

Update (5/25): At this point it’s probably worth talking about Amazon Prime Video’s strategy going forward with high budget and low budget shows as it takes into account the bang for its buck.

Increasingly, Amazon Prime Video is finding hits in unlikely places for much cheaper than it’s hyper-expensive and expansive productions. That currently includes the (still alive) Rings of Power, the now-dead Wheel of Time, but lest we forget, The Expanse was cancelled when there were still quite a few books left, even though it was a Jeff Bezos personal favorite.

Looking at the top 10 list for Amazon, you can see how this plays out. It has reality/docuseries like Earnhardt and Clarkson’s farm in the 1-2 spots now. Scripted shows are the likes of Motorheads, Overcompensating, The Summer I Turned Pretty and the forever-hit Reacher, where if costs are going up for that series, it’s only beceause Alan Ritchson is getting paid more (he should be).

Amazon is not giving up on super-expensive shows yet. Two high profiles one are an adaptation of the game God of War and and another of famed space series Mass Effect. Hugely budgets, both. I thing one thing that gave them the confidence to do them is one of their huge-budget series actually hitting, Fallout, attracting both critical and fan praise, in addition to putting up huge viewership. So we’ll see where things go from here.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.