David Dawson

The trailers for this were terrible and gave us no idea what this series would be specifically about, or the direction it was taking; many of the actors used the pre-show interviews to push some kind of ‘woke’ agenda. The actual show does not come across like that at all. Yes, the show plays fast and loose with Tolkien’s lore but, unless you have obsessed over minute details from footnotes and appendices in the books, this isn’t really an issue. In fact, the show - so far - serves as a pseudo-alternate prologue to the Peter Jackson films, rather than a retelling of anything in the books. Also, let’s face it - if you know anything about the LOTR trilogy books - Peter Jackson’s films were only broadly faithful to the books, and they are still beloved by fans some 20 years on. Rings of Power is shaping up to be a very entertaining show set in a proto-Middle Earth, and I’m up for it.