Now we're Tolkien! After six glacial hours, The Rings of Power is finally worth watching

[eShirl]

It’s been a painstaking buildup – mainly of people chatting by pretty trees – but now, faithful fans who haven’t already given up have been rewarded with the best big-budget TV in years

Whether you’re a Tolkien obsessive or the sort of dabbler who doesn’t give an Ent’s conker what a Silmarillion is, it’s not hard to see why reactions to The Rings of Power have been … mixed.

There’s a scene in The Return of the King where Pippin is staring across the calm, still mists of Pelennor Fields, waiting for Sauron’s orc armies to lay siege to the city of Minas Tirith. “It’s so quiet,” he says. “It’s the deep breath,” says Gandalf, “before the plunge.” That’s how Amazon’s bazillion-dollar take on Tolkien felt for its first five episodes. A buildup – albeit an astonishingly bonny one – to something big, gripping and hugely exciting that was yet to happen.

CAUTION: SPOILERS AT LINK https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/04/tolkien-the-rings-of-power-finally-worth-watching

final paragraph:

Though it is fanciful to expect an episode like this each week, anyone who gave up before episode six surely now needs to reconsider that position. The prologue is finally over. Even if the last episodes of the season are only half as good as this, House of the Dragon can no longer claim to be the only top-drawer, big-budget fantasy show around. The Rings of Power took its sweet time, but it got there in the end.

edited to ad: This latest episode blew my mind.