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

• Released: September 1, 2022
• Created by: Patrick McKay, John D. Payne
• Amount of seasons: 1
• Seasons watched: 1
• Rating: 3/5

Synopsis

The goings-ons in ancient Middle Earth, where the dark lord Sauron is about to rise to power and an elf named Galadriel is doing anything in her might to stop him. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger surprises a bunch of Harfoots and the elf Elrond has a conflict with the dwarves.

My Thoughts

Look, whether or not you hate this series, I will watch & review all of it because I am too much of a Lord of the Rings nerd not to. A lot of people are negative on this series and I personally do not agree. Can I see where they're coming from? Some of them. There's a bunch who are just Tolkien purists who can't stand anything that deviates from the books or just flat out racists who can't handle a little bit of diverse casting. But there's also those who present actual arguments to the table on how they don't like certain things, such as character arcs of how episodes are structured. Those I am much more willing to listen to.

Okay, so while I like this series, I also do not think it is perfect. Far from it. It's got a few flaws and it did take me a lot of effort to stay invested at some points. I also agree that I don't like all of the characters and the structure of the show was pretty weak. 

My least favorite parts of the show ironically were the current "main" plotline, with Galadriel and the Númenóreans trying to stop Adar and his orcs in the Southlands. It was fine on paper but honestly I just wasn't really all that invested in any of the characters of that plotline, except for a few (Elendil and Arondir). I don't mind the fact that they gave Galadriel a sword and made her a warrior, by the way, but I just don't like the way she's characterized at all. I don't need her to be all pretty and perfectly ethereal like in the Rings trilogy but this ridiculously stubborn sometimes childish-acting Galadriel just wasn't fun to follow. I'm all for flawed characters but they should still be likable. I don't hate Galadriel in this adaptation or anything, but I just don't care for her character.

As for the series structure, yeah I do agree it's very weak. We have about eight hours, maybe more, worth of content this season, yet there's a whole lot of setup and very little actual payoff. There's a pretty intense and cool battle that takes place in episode six, but aside from that most of the series just doesn't really get going yet. At least not up until that point. We also still don't see how all of these plotlines tie together. Sure, Galadriel's plotline ends up trying into those of Arondir and the Southlanders, but aside from that there's very little (to no) interaction between this plotline and that of the Dwarves and the Harfoots. Which would be fine for early episodes but after eight hours I feel that it should at least tie together a little bit more to feel as a solid whole. Right now it still feels like season one was 85% setup for future seasons. And if you want your watchers to be (and stay) hooked they'll need more than mostly setup.

But that said, there's a lot of positive aspects as well. I like some of the characters quite a lot (most notably the Harfoots, the Stranger, Arondir, Elrond, Disa and of course Durin IV). Honestly, my favorite plotline was definitely that of the Harfoots, but close second is the one with Elrond and the Dwarves. His relationship with Durin IV is just so damn wholesome and the conflict there has me genuinely invested. Somehow these conflicts that (in the grand scheme of things) seem much more minor compared to the one in the Southlands are just a million times more interesting to me than whatever the other has going on. 

Also, the visuals are pretty damn great. I like the effects, the costuming, the animation and designs on certain digital creatures (the wolves and warg have...interesting designs to say the least) and the landscapes are beautiful. My main gripe with how things look would be the wigs, honestly. The elves without long hair just doesn't quite look right. Also, yes, this includes Disa not having a beard. I don't mind certain book inaccuracies but the fact that none of the female dwarves have beards (and most of the elves don't have long hair) just feels visually off. Maybe this is just because I'm so used to the Peter Jackson movies where all elves have long hair and, yes, the female dwarves are indeed depicted with beards. And, I mean, it's not like they didn't have the money for proper wigs. This is literally the most expensive TV show ever made. If they're spending 500 million dollar on this show anyways I don't see why they couldn't have invested in some proper wigs as well. Some of them look fine, but stuff like short-haired Elrond or Celebrimbor... Yeah that's just not my thing.

Okay so you get my overall thoughts. It's far from perfect but it's also not godawful. My biggest gripe really is the awkward structuring of the series, it mostly being setup and lack of action up until episode six. I really don't hate it, and at this point I wish I gave out quarter-ratings on this blog, but alas I do not. 

I'm really willing to give this a 3.25/5, but it's just too low (at least this season) to give it a proper 3.5. So for now it'll stay at a 3, but again, please don't take it too negatively. I like it, it's just not great. I definitely hope that they'll improve in future seasons, which I'll of course watch. They can probably go only up from here and I'm definitely hooked so far! It's just a bit of an awkward start.