‘Wheel of Time' boss unpacks the hardest book-to-screen moment in Season 3
Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who could use a fantasy getaway.
'The Wheel of Time' concluded it's third season this week and showrunner Rafe Judkins stopped by Guest Spot to tell us about the section from the beloved book franchise that proved most challenging to adapt for the screen.
Also in Screen Gab No. 177, TV critic Robert Lloyd looks at the documentary of acclaimed cartoonist Art Spiegelman and culture columnist Mary McNamara shares her thoughts on why 'Government Cheese' is worth your time.
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Bella Ramsey is embracing the difficult parts of Ellie and 'The Last of Us': The star of HBO's postapocalyptic drama said shooting Season 2 was much more grueling, but that it helped the actor understand more about themself.
After losing his wife of 43 years, David Cronenberg turned the camera on grief itself: The Canadian director reflects on body horror, Trump, Elon Musk, legacy and his new movie 'The Shrouds' — and whether it might be the last one he ever makes.
They found the music of 'Sinners' together — just as they have from the beginning: In their unique collaboration, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson played music together during much of the prep for the film.
In 'Étoile,' 'Bunheads' creators return to ballet but with a cross-Atlantic twist: Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino are back with a new Prime Video series that puts their love of ballet in the forefront.
Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times
'Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse' (PBS.org)
Presented under the umbrella of 'American Masters,' Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin's film focuses on comics artist Spiegelman, whose landmark work 'Maus,' originally serialized from 1980 to 1991, deals with his family's experience in the Holocaust — portraying the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats — and his own attempts to come to terms with its lingering effects, on them and himself, by drawing his way through it. The film functions also as a lesson in comics structure and as an exciting, strangely moving history of alternative comics — from Mad magazine and Zap! (old friends Robert Crumb and Bill Griffith appear) to Raw, the large-format magazine founded by Spiegelman and wife Françoise Mouly (the art editor of the New Yorker since 1993), and into the age of autobiographical graphic novels 'Maus' made possible. That 'Maus,' with its depictions of fascism, deportation and concentration camps, has been banned from American libraries and schoolrooms is sadly ironic and distressingly timely. — Robert Lloyd
'Government Cheese' (AppleTV+)
The word 'kaleidoscope' was coined by the mechanism's inventor from ancient Greek words that add up, more or less, to 'the observation of beautiful forms.' It's a term, and a meaning, that applies to 'Government Cheese,' an ever-shifting bewitchment of a series.
Seen one way, it is the story of Hampton Chambers (David Oyelowo), a cheerfully charismatic grifter, recently home from prison. Armed with a self-sharpening drill bit of his own invention, he is trying to go straight despite a justifiably dubious reception by most of his family and the fallout from a very unfortunate event that put him in debt to a very peculiar (i.e. French Canadian) criminal family. Twist the image just slightly, however, and 'Government Cheese' becomes more of a spiritual worldview, in which the big picture is blurred at the edges, but the details stand out in brilliant clarity. While in prison, Hampton has God, or at least a form of God, explained to him by a fellow prisoner as a force which makes its grand plan known through a series of small but collectively impactful events. Hampton now believes that the universe is sending him a series of messages — a jumping frog tells him to take a leap of faith, etc. These may or may not be real but certainly resonate with anyone who has searched for similar signs in a chaotic world.
Co-created by Paul Hunter and Aeysaha Carr, the series is set in 1969 Chatsworth and based on Hunter's memories of his childhood. The aerospace industry figures heavily as does the hyper-stylized earth-tone fashions of the times. Heavily influenced by the Coen brothers, the show often feels like a cross between a fable and a fever dream, but powerful performances by Oyelowo and Simone Missick as Hampton's wife, Astoria, keep it grounded in its own reality. A well-known director of music videos, Hunter infuses 'Government Cheese' with a cinematic vibrancy — Chatsworth has never looked so cool — that keeps you watching even as you wonder what exactly you are looking at. — Mary McNamara
READ MORE >> 'Government Cheese' stays outside the box with a surreal Black family in the Valley
A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they're working on — and what they're watching
The jam-packed Season 3 finale of 'The Wheel of Time,' available to stream on Prime Video, included multiple deaths and plenty of betrayals. It's no small feat adapting the narrative complexity of Robert Jordan's fantasy book franchise for TV. In this week's Guest Spot, showrunner Rafe Judkins discussed the book-inspired moment that was most challenging to adapt for screen, what he's watching and more. — Yvonne Villarreal
You're given eight episodes to condense so much book content into a coherent narrative. Three seasons in, what have you learned about adapting a saga like 'The Wheel of Time' for TV in that framework? Do you wish you had more episodes for Season 3?
When I originally pitched the show, it was for eight seasons with 10 episodes in each season. I thought that, even though limited, this would be a way to get through all 15 books of Robert Jordan's 'The Wheel of Time' series. Unfortunately, production reality often intersects with creative goals, so we've had to try to pull off the same story with just eight episodes a season. It leads to a lot of condensing and re-building of the narrative to feel smooth for people who aren't at all familiar with the books. But the thing about TV is that you always wish you had more time. I think epic fantasy television is at its best and allows the stories to really build and pay off when there are 10 to 13 episodes per season.
Give me an example of an element from the novels that was a challenge to bring to life in Season 3. How did you figure it out?
We had to figure out a way to bring a section of the books called 'The Road to the Spear' to life in Season 3. It's incredibly challenging because in the books, it's basically one character who sees an entire culture's history through the eyes of his ancestors, one story after another after another, moving backward in time. It's one of the greatest parts of the entire book series, but to bring it to life on television, we had to find a way to emotionally connect the audience to these disparate stories, so we had the actor (Josha Stradowski who plays Rand al'Thor) actually wear six different full prosthetic makeups and play the lead character in each of the vignettes moving backward through time. I think it worked well to really help the audience emotionally connect to these stories and simultaneously feel and understand their impact on the character of Rand, who's witnessed these visions.
What have you watched recently that you're recommending to everyone you know?
With my whole life contained in the scripted sphere, I actually usually end up watching comedies or reality TV when I've got time to myself. And because I'm traveling so much for work, I'm usually watching shows from all over the world — right now I'm loving 'Traitors' (UK and U.S. versions!) [Peacock], 'Australian Survivor' and the British show 'Taskmaster.'
What's your go-to comfort watch, the film or TV show you return to again and again?
'Xena: Warrior Princess' [Prime Video]! It's insane at times (insert clip of Xena doing 70 flips after she's thrown herself out of a pine tree to land on a ship), but it was so different than anything else on TV when it came out. There was also such an emotional core and connection to those characters and I grew up watching them, so it feels like a piece of home when I see it now.
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