Written by Andreas Babiolakis

Binge, Fringe, or Singe? is our television series that will cover the latest seasons, miniseries, and more. Binge is our recommendation to marathon the reviewed season. Fringe means it won’t be everyone’s favourite show, but is worth a try (maybe there are issues with it). Singe means to avoid the reviewed series at all costs.

I absolutely adore Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, down to the opinion I hold that The Return of the King is one of cinema’s greatest epics. I imagined that J. R. R. Tolkien’s works were impenetrable and would always result in brilliant adaptations because of how strong they themselves were, but I would be proven wrong when Jackson would return to the Shire for his Hobbit trilogy: it was stretched out to the point of being translucently thin, was stuffed with cliches and pedestrian tropes to add substance, and released in an eye-torturing forty eight frames per second 3D exercise. Much of this was producer and studio involvement, but it just goes to show that you can make a Tolkien adaptation that doesn’t work (even an adaption of his life doesn’t necessarily mean instant gold). I was also a little concerned with how full throttle Amazon was going with its promotional game for its latest series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Alas, Amazon has a lot of faith in this series, enough that its entirety (or majority, depending on how long it goes on for) has already been green-lit and paid for, and now we have to put up with advertisements for this series even in bathroom stalls.

Even amidst the review bombing by Tolkien diehards and toxically bigoted idiots, the initial apprehension, and the competition with HBO’s House of the Dragon, Amazon stuck by their guns and promoted The Rings of Power. Maybe because they spent the most amount of money over a television show ever; they could be interested in getting their return (but it’s Amazon: they’ll get it one way or another). Or they know what’s coming. It was tough to see, considering how the two episode premiere was meant to be a gift but it felt like a chore (two episodes that are seventy minutes back-to-back is a lot to take in, especially when the majority of their makeup serves as world building), but I’m starting to see it now. With how the last few episodes of The Rings of Power have gone, I finally am noticing that may have been there all along: a series of massive scope and magnificent execution. We’re not out of the woods yet as there are still many seasons to go, but we may have a great series on our hands.

For now, all I can do is judge what I have seen and what is finished: the decent first season. This prequel series has small connections to the films we’ve seen so far (with a young Galadriel who is not like how we remembered her [instead of a wise, all-powerful elf, she is now a kickass heroine] and Isildur, as examples), and numerous appendices that Tolkien wrote whilst creating the endless lore of Middle-earth. We see the elves connect with men, the Harfoot hobbits, those damn Orcs and their uprising, and many (and I do mean many) different storylines. In fact, it’s far too much to take in at first, but I am reminded of how long The Fellowship of the Ring took to get started (at least an hour). Then again, that was a more focused display of expository information, and it didn’t last nearly as long before Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy gets going. The Rings of Power isn’t done getting started by the end of these two episodes. No. it takes at least three more to finally feel like it is no longer just setting the scene. Considering that each episode is a staggering seventy minutes, that is nearly six hours of build up. That’s far too much to ask of an audience, I don’t care how much faith you have in a project.

Maybe this will all feel pleasant in hindsight, should The Rings of Power evolve into an epic opus of our times. For now, all I feel is the exhaustion that stemmed from television that felt a bit like a chore, and it’s too bad because the majority of what I could see was fantastic. Everyone cast here in their numerous roles seem interesting, and I can’t wait to see more from these characters. The scale of this show is everything I hoped it would be, and while I did feel like the story itself would trudge along, I could get lost in these scenes forever. Then there are the effects, cinematography, and music, and I think even the biggest naysayers of this show (who have every right to feel bored) have to admit that this series is incredibly well made on these fronts alone. We expected a massive production that could push the boundaries of where television can go, and we certainly got them. At times, The Rings of Power is exquisite artistry, down to the medieval influences, holy aesthetic, and euphoric destruction (particularly the latter episodes when The Rings of Power picks up steam).

It’s difficult to gauge The Rings of Power because everything feels so preliminary: like an entire series devoted to the montage Galadriel narrated in The Fellowship of the Ring. My concern was that we wouldn’t be getting any sort of crescendo, and there is such a thing as too much backstory, but I feel like the series is finally paying off (at least in small doses). Where can the series go from here? I’d like to find out. While The Rings of Power doesn’t exhibit the same kind of first season jitters that other shows have (like not explaining enough, or having zero confidence), it has its own uncertainties: needing to spoon-feed every teensy little detail, and getting caught up in its own storytelling. Now that these all have passed, yes. I do want to see where The Rings of Power goes next, because those glimpses of exuberant battling and the climaxes of scenarios and settings we’ve spent literal hours waiting for are handled quite nicely. It’s also hard to discuss or critique a show that feels like it has just begun; it’s a slow one in this way, when you can feel out other series by the end of their first season. Still, I’m neither hating or adoring all that I see, but at least I have a bit of a firmer understanding of what this series is going to be like, and I am hoping I am right in thinking that the second season is going to be payoff after payoff. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is great at establishing, but it needs to begin to commit on a more frequent basis.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Binge, Fringe, or Singe?

Written by Andreas Babiolakis