There are times when one path becomes two, and you must choose

Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 TV shows of 2024

#4 :  The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Like the fledgling fellowship at the start of The Lord Of The Rings, the first season of The Rings Of Power — Amazon’s risky, billion-dollar, high-fantasy gamble on taking the marginalia of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium and turning it into the next Game Of Thrones — took some time to find its footing. With its spectacular second season, however, the series experienced its Council of Elrond moment as its individually great parts cohered into a barnstorming whole. From Sauron’s seduction and torture of Celebrimbor, to the grand reveal of Daniel Weyman’s Grand-Elf identity, to the arrival of Rory Kinnear’s Tom Bombadil, the introduction of heavy metal into Middle-earth, and that extraordinary three-episode spanning Siege of Eregion, Rings Of Power raised the bar on every level with its sophomore outing. And as the fall of Númenor looms, Sauron’s influence grows, and Galadriel and our heroes brace for the last alliance of elves and men, you get the distinct sense that the best of this high fantasy romp is very much yet to come.

I watched the first season and my opinion was that it was ambitious, gorgeous to look at but ridiculously badly paced - let's see if they've learned any lessons. The reviews I've read have been somewhat mixed, so I'm surprised to see it quite so high - I'm guessing Empire REALLY liked it. 

Hmmm - they've maybe learned a bit. It certainly does have an interesting enough story to tell (which I'm never going to bother trying to explain) and it's had a LOT of thought gone into it and when the whole thing works, it works well and looks absolutely gorgeous (when you can actually see it) - but it doesn't half take its time about it and take itself VERY seriously in the process. But, I don't think things are quite as bad as the first season and the pace definitely picked up towards the end so I actually feel more invested now, even though I'm not convinced it really has any particular destination in mind.  I do however think they've made it far too hard to join the party if they want to grow their audience, despite their very cool titles!

So, having been (relatively) nice about it, I do have a few minor complaints. A surprising amount of the action takes place in the dark, which is just annoying - fine if you're watching it in a cinema or at night, but if I really wanted to see some scenes I had to change the settings on my telly to Eternals mode (so-called because all of The Eternals seemed to be filmed in a cave at midnight) and I really can't be bothered doing that too often. I'd also say the sound levels for voices weren't always as great as they could have been when trying to compete with the sounds of battle - but I never quite had to resort to subtitles. 

On the writing front, some of the dialogue is, well, a bit crap, yet still delivered as though it's Shakespeare and it really doesn't help matters that several plot strands use this device

Sauron : "Let's do this well dodgy thing"
Random dude : "Wait - I don't know you. Are you, like, a bad person?"
Sauron : "Me? No way, dude!"
Rando : "Oh, OK - count me in!"

(and yes, this is a bit of a simplification). I also found the made-up languages to be quite annoying, but mostly because they only use them 5% of the time - obviously too many subtitles would scare off the average viewer, so the elves can only speak English if they have something particularly portentous or mystical to say.

On the subject of elves, they really are insufferably smug - Galadriel and maybe Arondir are the only ones I don't want to repeatedly punch in the face. And the men aren't much better with a lot of them being caught up in plot strands that I struggle to imagine anyone cares about - at least the dwarves are all just grumpy fuckers (although if I had to wear such big noses, I'd be grumpy too). It's quite an achievement that you actually have some sympathy for the orcs and even more so that the Harfoots are probably the least annoying race in the thing (but it certainly helps that they're not in this season so much).

Looking at the elfin actors, Morfydd Clark is really good as Galadriel and I also have to mention Ismael Cruz Córdova as Arondir, the only other elf I don't want to punch, but I do believe that all the other actors are being told to be punchable, so I guess they are doing a good job. On the dwarven front, Sophia Nomvete and Owain Arthur are both really good as Disa and Durin IV (a surprisingly relatable dwarf marriage) and Peter Mullen goes on a good corruption journey as Durin III. 

Other names to call out for me are Daniel Weyman as The Stranger (slightly less confused here than he was in season one), Sam Hazeldine as Adar (nicely balancing badness with belief he's doing the right thing) and Roy Kinnear as Tom Bombadil (he's obviously good because I forgive him the thousand pages of nonsense in whatever book it is). I also have to say there are a load of people in this that have their faces covered in masses of make-up and prosthetics or are voice only roles - they all do a good job but I've no idea who they are.

All in all, I think they did learn some lessons from season 1, but certainly not enough that I'd tell you that you absolutely have to stop everything and watch this from the beginning. I suspect everyone that's going to watch this has already done so and whilst I can understand that some people will love it, I certainly can't see the majority of people putting it at #4 on any list - and plenty of people would just roll their eyes at multiple aspects of the thing. If you want to watch it, it's on Amazon Prime - but I suspect you're fine without.

#5 - Well, I didn't not like it