The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Season 1)

⭐ 7.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

Tolkien media is really the only media I think I hold truly sacred. I was excited for a high-profile adaptation, and yet I think from the beginning I knew nothing could live up to my expectations. I was worried they would try to game-of-thronesify Tolkien and make it mature and graphic. I was worried it would stray too far from source material. I was worried that without a single established superstar attached to this project, it would just be a bad show.

What I didn't expect is that this show would kinda just be mediocre and that I wouldn't have super strong feelings either way. I think this show does a ton right, looks incredible, and essentially captures the spirit of Tolkien in a lot of ways. But I also think this show has a million problems that prevented me from ever getting too excited about it coming on.

I'll start with the bad. Mostly, I think this is purely plain TV stuff. I just think the story was never super compelling and I never cared that much for any of the characters. I thought the Durin/ Elrond stuff was cute, and maybe the best relationship, but even that didn't feel totally intriguing. The Harfoots were mostly delightful, but some of that was just too cheesy. I thought the Southland arc had promise at first, but I could just never care about any of those characters, especially that annoying, ugly ass child. And then the Galadriel/ Halbrand stuff was just so wooden to me. I think Galadriel is a cool character, and Modfydd Clark is an absolute goddess, but every episode about them seemed kinda boring and just made no sense from a motivation/ decision standpoint. How is Halbrand riding across the country on horseback with a mortal wound?!

It was a lot of those little things. The whole way the war went down. Galadriel choosing to cross an entire ocean BY SWIMMING. The Numenoreans crossing an ocean, and an entire continent seemingly overnight. The Harfoots leaving friends to die if they can't keep up. Just a lot of little weird nitpicks that added up for me.

But the main problem was the writing for me. Not just in terms of strange plot progression setup and choices. But just the stilted dialogue! Everything here felt like a first draft, just going with the first idea that someone had, rather than a huge room of accomplished writers. Maybe this was partly due to not having amazing actors to deliver the lines, but everything just seemed kinda amateur to me. Like, it felt like something I would write. What on earth is this metaphor about ships sailing and rocks falling because of seeing light? What?!

The last quick negative I'll mention is this world just felt small and empty. I know there were pandemic struggles, but where are the people? It just didn't feel like it had any sense of epic scale which I'd want from a Tolkien adaptation.

Okay, on to positives. This is maybe the prettiest show I've ever seen. Nay, it may be prettiest piece of anything I've ever seen on a tv screen. The budget for affects was certainly there, and I really do feel like they captured the beauty I was hoping to witness. Love the practical effects making everything absolutely jaw-dropping. Along with an amazing score from my guy Bear, I think the audio/visual was as good as I could have hoped for.

I'm glad they tried to be true to Tolkien. I think the quality wasn't always up to snuff, but you can totally tell this was a team of people who love Tolkien and tried their best. Even the cheesy stuff about names and trees were okay in my books because they were going for it. They took a ton of liberties with the story, adding in some lore and all, but I was okay with most of it because I thought thematically it was still true to the source. They never tried adding too much romance, sex-appeal or political intrigue but stuck to the Tolkien line of good versus evil in proper PG fashion.

I'm also just excited to see where this goes. I think perhaps newer seasons will see some improvement simply as the showrunners start to improve. They are new to this! I'm optimistic and happy to see where this goes, but I will admit they seemed to rushed through a lot of plot and I'm not sure how they can now extend this for multiple seasons. But whatever, if it's related to Tolkien I will continue to watch, I'll defend this show from the racist weirdos, and I'll give it the benefit of the doubt because these guys respect my guy John. This first season was not great, but I enjoyed watching every week nonetheless.

Also, a full extra point given to Poppy's song.