Sam Taylor

It’s telling that almost everyone is either rating this show 5/5 or 1/5. (Similar polarization applies to IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, etc.) Odds are you’ll either absolutely love it or you’ll utterly hate it. Perhaps you’ll love the visuals, music, acting, and world-building—which, based on these first two episodes, the show does excellently. Or, perhaps you’ll hate the show (or, rather, these first two episodes) for slow pacing, inconsistencies with the book lore, or a perception, accurate or not, that the show is politically contrived. Only one way to find out: watch it for yourself. As for myself, I found it to be a very enjoyable experience and, more than anything, I am happy to be back in Middle-Earth with the visual splendor, musical magnificence, and believable acting that it deserves. I didn’t mind the slower pacing of the first episode nor the acceleration of action in the second, but that’s just my subjective preference. I would give the show, as of now, a 5/5 based on my personal experience: and, if audience review data is actually representative of the wider population, it seems that roughly half of viewers agree.