Oh, how torn I am on The Wheel of Time. Yes, even as its second season went out with a considerable bang. (That stuff was fire -- several weaves of it.)
I have a lot of the same problems as in the first season -- some things aren't paced as well as in the books, and with certain concepts/locations, e.g. The Ways, there's hardly even an attempt at doing them justice -- but the show keeps winning me back with some of its choices, from the casting to the way that certain passages are adapted. Throughout the first few episodes, I kept thinking things like "Yes, THAT is Elayne Trakand!", "Yes, THAT is Bayle Domon!", "Yes, THAT is Elyas!", and so on and so forth.
Other casting decisions I'm less certain about and, yes, guys, I know there's still the possibility that some characters are cast with DEI quotas in mind (even as the world of the books is a rich and varied one, which I once suggested may provide some "justification" for those who usually harp on this stuff -- but it seems that in this show, the only physical attribute that denotes someone's land of origins is the red hair of the Aiel). Having said that, no one really sticks out as especially terrible. My least favorite of the main cast is probably Marcus Rutherford, who plays Perrin, failing to truly capture his emotionality.
As for Ishamael, who is now an ever-present villain, I am once again torn. Fares Fares is a fine actor (a veteran of Swedish film, some of his best roles are Easy Money and Jalla! Jalla!), but I dunno, hearing him speak English and going for a "menacing" delivery, I can't help but think of an evil Nandor the Relentless.
I suppose the biggest issue with the series is that, ultimately, it doesn't stand out from its contemporaries the way that Robert Jordan's source material stands out in the history of High Fantasy literature. I'm glad we have something, but I feel as though we'll soon be forgetting it.