The making of Season 1 of The Wheel of Time involved an incredible degree of production, going so far as to construct an entire village of furnished, functional buildings, only to set it all on fire for the sake of a scene in the first episode.
An article published by GQ described the creation and destruction of the fictional town of the Two Rivers, which serves as the main setting in The Wheel of Time's premiere. Most of the main characters have grown up in the secluded mountain village and never intended to leave it, but when a sudden attack from an army of Trollocs leaves their home in ruins, they're forced to consider a different kind of future.
The set village was built in a quarry in the Czech Republic, and consisted of enough buildings to create an immersive experience, each one having a complete interior and exterior rather than a façade like the ones sometimes used for filming. Setting up the village took months, with millions of dollars poured into it, but after scenes for the first episode were filmed in and around the buildings, all of them were burned down to simulate the fiery Trolloc attack.
Rafe Judkins, showrunner for The Wheel of Time, expressed his own sense of how surreal it was to pull off the enormous stunt. "One of the crazy things about now," he said, "is just how ready and willing networks are to just look you in the eye, and you say, 'I'm going to build the Two Rivers and then we're going to burn it down at the end of episode one.' And they're like: 'Great. What's next?'"
The Wheel of Time, which is based on the bestselling fantasy novels by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, is set in a world in which only women can work magic by channeling the One Power. Moiraine's search for the prophesied savior of the world leads her to five young villagers who will become caught up in a worldwide conflict as they each discover their own power. However, if one of them is a man who can channel, he'll be in danger from both the world and himself.
Season 2 of The Wheel of Time was announced in May this year, and production on it began in July. The first three episodes of Season 1, including the Two Rivers inferno and much more, will premiere on Amazon on November 19.
Source: GQ