The Lord Of The Rings Meets The Wheel Of Time In This 20-Episode High Fantasy Series

Sep 10, 2026 - 07:13

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The Lord Of The Rings Meets The Wheel Of Time In This 20-Episode High Fantasy Series

Published Sep 9, 2026, 10:15 PM EDT

Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy.

Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones).

Back in 2016, a fantasy TV series hit the scene that was essentially a spiritual blend of The Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time. Unfortunately, it only ran for 20 episodes before meeting its premature end—but don't let that stop you from giving it a binge. Back then, Game of Thrones had found its place upon the crown of the entertainment industry, but the fantasy TV genre as a whole hadn't quite found its footing. High fantasy was generally better suited to film, like Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Still, there was obviously some potential here.

A decade ago, neither The Lord of the Rings nor The Wheel of Time had been brought to television yet. That wouldn't happen until Prime Video adapted the latter in 2021 and followed it up with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power in 2022. So, before 2016, there were really no high fantasy shows of this flavor on air. J.R.R. Tolkien's iconic formula or Robert Jordan's unique worldbuilding would have their day on television. Still, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar decided to begin with a different book adaptation that captured a similar flair.

Gough and Millar, known for Smallville and Wednesday, premiered their adaptation of Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara trilogy on January 5, 2016. The series was titled The Shannara Chronicles, and it originally aired on MTV. Starring Austin Butler, Poppy Drayton, Ivana Baquero, and Manu Bennett, among others, The Shannara Chronicles revolves around Wil, Amberle, and Eretria, all of whom are tasked with protecting the ancient Ellcrys, a tree that keeps banished demons from returning to the Four Lands.

Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings essentially established the traditional quest structure of high fantasy, and we see this approach embraced by The Shannara Chronicles. Both these stories feature an ancient dark lord whose evil spirit threatens to return, and can only be stopped by an atypical hero. Then, like The Wheel of Time, The Shannara Chronicles is set on our Earth, but far, far into the future. The idea is that a global apocalyptic event caused the collapse of modern human society, and after centuries, the world of the Four Realms is what we are left with.

With all these ingredients, The Shannara Chronicles should have been a hit. Unfortunately, it was canceled after season 2, with a total of 20 episodes, and was never picked up again. It's truly a shame, since a project of this type could have performed significantly better had it aired today.

The Shannara Chronicles Could Have Performed Much Better Today

The Shannara Chronicles isn't a bad show. In fact, it holds a fair 79% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The trouble was that it took this series a bit of time to find itself. The Shannara Chronicles season 1 only has a 59% Rotten Tomatoes score, and ratings reportedly plummeted after that first installment. Despite that, this series managed to come back with a vengeance. After finding its feet, The Shannara Chronicles season 2 managed a perfect 100% critic score and a just-as-impressive 87% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's clear looking at these figures that The Shannara Chronicles managed to find its groove. The story got good as the richer aspects of Brooks' world-building came to the surface. We saw more of the mastery often associated with Tolkien and Jordan, and this allowed for a rare turnaround after an abysmal premiere. The trouble is that by this point, The Shannara Chronicles had jumped networks (from MTV to Spike) and didn't have the ongoing viewership to justify the show's sizeable fantasy budget.

The fact that The Shannara Chronicles managed to do the impossible and turn things around in season 2 proves that this is an adaptation that could have been a massive success. It just didn't fully realize that potential until it was already too late. In this day and age, the industry has a far better understanding of what works for high fantasy and television. A modern version of this series would jump right in with the quality of season 2, since it would have already learned from all those classic mistakes. Perhaps we will someday get that wish. For now, however, both seasons of The Shannara Chronicles are worth binging, even if it's just for inspiration for the next big thing.