Books becoming TV Shows...The Second Season?

Well, not really the second season. More of a secret fear of something coming true.

In going with the theme from the last post, fantasy books becoming tv shows. I am a huge fan of The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan. Now I don't need to fear just yet. But will the day soon come? Part of me wishes that this day will come, to see in pictures that which I have only viewed in my head. Now, the biggest problem with The Wheel of Time (from now on referred to as TWoT for space purposes) is the length of the series. By its end in November 2011, the series will clock in at a massive 14 books, with one prequel. With three books, it took Peter Jackson 3+ hours per movie to tell the whole story. JK Rowling's books encountered puberty while filming. And thats only 6/7 books. Imagine doing that with 14 books! It would be impossible. Characters that age 3 years over the books will age 10+ in film. However, Universal has options, or rights, or something that gives them first crack at a film.

So what is the solution?

Television - but who would do it? Which network would undertake this challenge? HBO/Showtime would be the best, but you still run into two issues: age, and quality. It would be easy to skimp or severly edit (ala Legend of the Seeker) to fit it in, but I don't think I would want that...

Animation - Probably the best option to put this to the screen. Animation is to the point now where you can make decent looking people, and the age issue goes out the window. Networks/studios can take time to do a quality movie, where the age of the actors does not matter.

I personally would rather not see it in animation. I think this is a story that would need to be told live action. They did it with Lord of The Rings, why not here?

RANDOM THOUGHT INSERTION!
They de-aged Patrick Stewart in X3. Age problem solved! After a certain point, just start CGI correcting the actors to stay within the age of the characters.
END RANDOM THOUGHT!

Which brings me right back to animation, because depending on how much they would have to correct, they should just animate it completely. And we know where I stand on that.