This is the first television series I’m reviewing that, at time of writing, is yet to finish. Two episodes of The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power have been broadcast so far, with the remaining six of the eight part series to be aired on a weekly basis.

The adult in me says I should wait until the show is done, binge watch it and then review it but the child in me finds all the gossip regarding the series’ budget and quality too tempting not to dive in.

The Rings Of Power appears to be a prequel to Peter Jackson’s renditions of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings. The opening two episodes introduce us to four subplots; a young Galadriel’s hunt for Sauron, a young Elrond’s start on a strange new project, an elf’s romance with a human village girl and a Harfoot’s venture beyond her tribe’s territory.

Episode One  

One thing that’s made The Rings Of Power the talk of the town is its apparent billion dollar budget, which would easily make it the most expensive television series ever produced. So the question is… does it look like it cost a billion dollars?

In my opinion…. kind of.

The landscapes, sets and creatures look just as good, if not better, than those in the Lord Of The Rings films. Can’t really say the same for the costumes and make-up, their quality is more in line with The Hobbit films. Whether you’re looking at an Elf, a dwarf or a Harfoot, you can see where the prosthetics end and the actor begins. All the ears, noses and beards look rubbery and glued on.

The costumes aren’t really bad but when compared to the authentic, lived-in quality of the fabrics and armour we saw in Lord Of The Rings, they look like something from In The Name Of The King.

Now what of the characters and story? A good chunk of Episode One is nothing but exposition, which I can forgive. It’s the first episode of a fantasy series, you have to be told what’s what. A big concern I drew from the first episode was the similarities to the plots of Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit. The series is supposed to be based on Tolkien’s vast Middle-Earth mythology yet it retreads so many ideas, themes and characters we’ve already seen. I especially felt this when introduced to the Harfoots.

Our leading Harfoot, Elanor (Markella Kavenagh), is essentially a Baggins. She has wanderlust, she wants to see the world but is restricted by her Harfoot land and Harfoot heritage. With her story I feared the series was going down a Force Awakens route.

Galadriel is the stand-out character in Episode One as while her plot does concern Sauron, a villain we’ve seen enough times in Middle-Earth I think, it has the potential to be a decent adventure story as she travels a great distance just to get a trace of the Dark Lord.

Episode Two

Young Elrond (Robert Aramayo) has a bit more to do here. He’s offered an usual opportunity by his Elf colleagues, which brings him to a place you’ll recognise if you love the Lord Of The Rings films. There he reunites with an old friend and while the poor make-up and costumes are very obvious here, the chemistry between the characters is actually fun to watch.

At this point, I was getting worried about the elf-human romance between Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi). They get a lot of time in the first episode and by the end of the second episode, I’m still not feeling invested in them. So far their story just seems like another forbidden love arc you’d find in your average YA series.

Galadriel’s quest continues, providing a pretty tense action sequence involving a sea monster. Elanor’s arc gets an interesting a development in the form of a man falling from the sky. No way to tell where it’ll go but it doesn’t involve a magic ring or a dragon taking over a mountain so I can hope that the next few episodes might get me more invested.

Flaws in the first episode can be forgiven, those in the second however, despite the things it gets right, cannot. This certainly isn’t the best start to a show I’ve seen but then again, the writers did not give themselves an easy task. Perhaps once the season is finished, we may look back at these episodes more fondly, seeing the little set ups that were planted. We could also back at these episodes with seething hatred, knowing the awfulness that followed.

End of the day, only time will tell so for now I give Episode One of The Rings of Power a watchable 6 out of 10 and Episode Two a mediocre 5 out of 10.

I won’t be covering every episode each week as they’re broadcast, I’ll more than likely cover the entire season once it’s done some point in early November. This is because the series will be airing through October, which, if you’ve followed this blog for a while, will know is a very special season here. I’ll see you then 😉