So far the casting is great and it seems like all the actors have a solid grasp of the source material. Lan and Moiraine stand out in particular.
I'm only on the second episode so I can't say much more but from the dialogue and portrayal of the Two Rivers village to the climactic battle scene in the first episode I'm pretty sold so far.
I agree generally. The "Fridging Perrin's wife" thing feels like a writing shortcut to me, to wring extra pathos out of his story, and speedrun his arc. I think Perrin's arc in the books is generally one of the worst received for readers, and he's kinda off doin his own thing for so long, before it become relevant to everyone else, so I get big vibes that the writers are planning on shortcutting a lot of it in general. Which, I instinctively don't like, but also I understand somewhat what they're trying to do.
Also, someone pointed out to me something I wasn't aware of, that RJ's notes do mention a 'female dragon', for when the world needs a female channeler to save the world in the cycle, though in book canon, she is called Amaresu instead of dragon, so there's a chance that the show writers could be referencing that as well.
Yeah I noticed some of that "short cutting" with Mat too, having him steal from Two Rivers folk seems a bit out of character, but I guess they want to develop him as this rogueish archetype early on. Also I pretty sure he didn't really pick up gambling until Tar Valon but I could be wrong.
I didn't know those notes about a female dragon either, I always figured that there absolutely could be a female dragon in other turnings of the Wheel, but this specific turning's one was male and thus the Aes Sedai would be hunting exclusively male channelers.