I’m trying, as hard as I can, not to let my lifetime of Tolkien readership to affect my judgment of the show, which is its own thing in a very different medium with different structures, strengths, and requirements. But it’s hard! It’s hard because I know how complex and tragic this material can be, and I’m seeing so little of that complexity and tragedy; in its place are a bunch of gritty tough guys and wide-eyed wonder-seekers I don’t recognize, whether their origins are canonical or not. Aside from some really cheesy seafaring sequences everything still looks solid and expensive, but it feels like some vital part of the storytelling and character-building budget was cut. Short of a magic ring, I’m not sure how the show digs itself out of that hole.

I reviewed this week’s episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for Decider.

The biggest problem with this episode is evident if you compare it to, like, any other episode of good television. For the most part, stories in prestige TV are driven by character interaction. People encounter one another, have conversations or arguments or fights, emerge on the other side either changed or redoubled in their determination not to change, and the plot proceeds from there. (This is how House of the Dragon works, to cite an obvious point of comparison for this show.)

In this episode, though, written by Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul veteran Gennifer Hutchison of all people, way too many of the scene transitions that propel the narrative are these kind of cheap cliffhangers, in which the action is cut off just before or just after something interesting happens. Arondir gets got by some goblins? Cut! Durin père and Durin fils open a treasure box with a secret MacGuffin inside? Cut! Theo’s blood gets drawn into his obviously evil Sauronic artifact? Cut! Galadriel and Halbard get rescued by the silhouette of an off-camera sailor? Cut! 

You could get away with one or even two of these pseudo-suspenseful edits, I guess. But a whole suite of them? It’s not storytelling — it’s a cheat code, the easiest possible way to drive people from one moment (or episode) of the story to the next. I’m surprised it made it out of the writers’ room this way.

I reviewed the second episode of The Rings of Power for Decider.

At this point, I want to state for the record that I am currently covering not only The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon, and in neither case do I feel it’s my job to adjudicate the differences between the books and the shows. The books are the books and the shows are the shows — two different media, two different sets of structures and demands and rewards. Ultimately, what matters is what winds up on screen, and how that comes across to the viewer.

That being said, I must admit that it’s extraordinarily difficult for a person like me — a guy who first read The Hobbit at age 5, who’s seen the LotR movies more times than I can count, who’s read Tolkien’s books to his children multiple times, who has the goddamned White Tree of Gondor tattooed on his arm — to formulate an equal appreciation for the canonical characters and the invented ones. Galadriel and Elrond, and even Finrod and Gil-galad — these are old friends of mine, dating back decades. Arondir and Bronwyn and Theo and Nori? To paraphrase Mariah Carey, I don’t know them.

I reviewed tonight’s series premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which was okay, for Decider.