The large majority of people did not finish Prime Video’s Rings Of Power
Despite dismal viewership numbers, Amazon HQ is still touting their precious show as a "success"
Aux News Rings of Power
If the OG (or, as many would say, only) Lord Of The Rings stories taught us anything, it’s that even the mightiest of evils can be snuffed out by regular people dedicating their time and energy to the cause (or as Gandalf would say, “deciding what to do with the time that is given to them”). In the case of real-life power-hungry megalomaniac Sauron Jeff Bezos, it seems like the people have decided to take a stand by dedicating none of their time or energy at all.
In a searing new report from The Hollywood Reporter, sources confirmed that Prime Video’s The Rings Of Power—thought to be one of the most expensive shows of all time with an approximate $465 million price tag attached to just the first season—is losing the viewership war to Netflix, HBO, and even its own Prime Video sister show The Boys.
The report states that Bezos’ big gambit scored just a 37% completion rate in the U.S., or in other words, only 37% of viewers who started the show actually finished it. That is… not great. (The report specifies that a “50% completion rate would be a solid but not spectacular result, according to insiders.”) Overseas, Rings had a 45% completion rate, which is a little better but still pretty abysmal.
For reference, Netflix tends to axe shows that come in around a 50% completion rate (or lower), as was the case with both 1899 and First Kill (via Forbes). The competing streamer also nabbed the top 10 spots for original series by minutes watched (according to Nielsen data, via the THR report) with Prime Video’s The Boys coming in 11th and Rings all the way down at number 15.
But is this pretty obvious failure being seen (or at least spoken of) as a failure over in Bezosland? Of course not! “This desire to paint the show as anything less than a success—it’s not reflective of any conversation I’m having internally,” said Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke, before adding that the second season will be more dramatic: “That’s a huge opportunity for us. The first season required a lot of setting up.” Tolkein always made it clear that it was really all about the journey and not the end result—we guess they’ve gotten at least that much right!
117 Comments
Something something could have had more seasons of The Tick
That would have been so amazing!
I would have preferred they just continue the warburton series since it was the better version of the Tick honestly
I rewatched the Warburton series before the new one came out and, while it was better than I remembered, the new one was superior imho.
I still can’t believe they axed that.
I get the feeling they only axed it because The Boys was coming online and they didn’t want to have too many funny Super hero shows?
I guess Superion and Homelander were similar dark takes on Superman. I loved The Tick. Soon as I finished season 2 I started watching season 1 again.
I can I liked it but it simply wasn’t that engaging with it’s storyline. Maybe if it was more sitcom like the 2000s series the better series it would have worked.
I just bury the pain under a thousand tons of mind ice!
Thet went there….but not back again
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
A veritable spoon drawer full, chum
Sadly, “spooooon!” only apeared at the very end of the very last episode, as it faded to black. Maybe fittingly.
The 2000s series was better man it had batmanuel you can’t beat that
Now I’m all sad again
Make that 2nd season. Also, give it time. Slow starts with massive cult status over time is a real thing. Just ask Bladerunner!Just don’t go cancelling and disappearing everything like WB and you’ll have a chance.
That is the problem with Men. With their short lives, they never finish what they start, leaving us to clean up their mess.
amirite?
…and my axe…body spray!
I made it halfway through the first episode and I was struggling to pay attention. I paused it and watched something else. I realized a few days later that I really didn’t care enough to go back, even if it meant on missing out on a little pop culture.
Seriously. This was one of those shows where I felt very dirty for wasting my life. Not a feeling you want to get from a show.
I’m not surprised. The pacing is so slow since they want to stretch it out in multiple seasons.
Oh, well I liked it. I won’t say it’s good, but even a chance to step into a lesser version of Tolkein’s world for an hour a week was enjoyable. We are living in Arda Marred, after all.
I saw it all and mostly liked it but I can totally see why a lot of people bailed. Those first three or four episodes were slow as hell. And because of the weird way that Amazon only owns some very specific rights to a bunch of ancillary parts of Lord of the Rings lore, the superfans didn’t like it because it changed a bunch of stuff.
I’m the nerd who sat in the back of the room in 5th grade reading the Silmarillian for the third time instead of paying attention and I didn’t mind the changes so much. What I minded is that it was boring and there was some major nonsense with stuff like the Numinorians finding the single oh so tiny village they needed to get to at just the wrong time…and then nobody actually checking to make sure the broken sword hilt was actually still the item wrapped in rags.
I don’t mind that it was fanfic, I expect that, it’s that it wasn’t very good fanfic.
Yea, the insane turn of events that had to occur for Mordor to happen was so very silly indeed.
The scene itself was well done but the sequence of events that lead up to it was deeply stupid.
As an admittedly fairly rusty Tolkien uberfan, there wasn’t actually a lot that was inherently inconsistent with the lore IIRC, aside from compressing millennia of events into what felt like a couple of months*. (I suppose there were also certain intentional casting choices that invoked a certain ire among a certain ilk, but from my POV, while it invites a host of contradictions both with the lore and within itself, I’ll choose to handwave it away as the Song of Ilúvatar willing it so.)*I’d have loved if it they’d done it more as semi-isolated seasons with huge time jumps between them, with the mortal characters replaced between seasons—really trying to make you feel the passage of time for the Elves. But, I grant that this would’ve been much slower and almost definitely wouldn’t have worked for a general audience (not that what they tried seems to have either).
I think part of the issue with the time compression might be part of the rights thing I mentioned before. Apparently Amazon has the rights to the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, and The Appendices but not to the Silmarilion, or unfinished tales or anything else. So they can talk about most of the big stuff because they are mentioned in the Appendices but the specifics they have to fill in themselves since they aren’t allowed to reference the deep dive materials.It’s pretty weird that they bought the rights for the later stuff but then made the show about early events that they couldn’t fully adapt. It’s hard to believe Silmarillion rights would have been more expensive than the trilogy and The Hobbit combined was.
I wonder how much of it was Christopher Tolkien being dead set against it, and blocking anything he had a hand in.
I didn’t mind the pace. I minded the nonsensical script, horrible acting and general feeling that script was afterthought to banging CGI ideas.
I did watch it all, but I really thought the season ended at the second to last episode. I was surprised when I saw another episode the following week.
They probably should have held off on introducing so many characters at once. Start with Galadriel, so you have a main character. Then build out from there. Introduce some men in the next episode, then dwarves in the next. Then the final scene of that episode is Gandalf falling to Middle Earth. Who finds him? Hobbits? Next episode explores them. You can’t just dump everything all at once and expect people to follow it all.
Going into it I knew it would basically be Tolkien fanfic but I was hoping it would at least not be boring Tolkien fanfic.I was, in large part, disappointed.
I enjoyed it. It took a couple of episodes to find it’s feet, but even then it wasn’t GoT or other tentpole show. I found the deliberate pace refreshing. Like, it felt like a LoTR show, not a show cosplaying as LoTR.
I liked it but it was perhaps not the greatestOne thing that made me laugh was Galadriel, an immortal elf, blowing up at Halbrand and telling him she had lost so many loved one in the war against evil that just saying all their names would take longer than he was going to be alive, and him reacting kind of hilariously like, oh here we go with the arrogant elf bullshit
The Elrond/Durin relationship was a high point for me. The rock breaking contest where you know Elrond is a half elf that can go all year if he needs to but has to let Durin win is friggen great.
Yeah Elrond and Durin were great, and Galadriel had major chemistry with everybody. Even sad human healer and distractingly hot elf were good. The acting was let down by poor story choices and weird pacing. Still, it was the best of the two big epic fantasy shows. It’s a pity it lost out to Fire and Blood which was watched mostly out of morbid curiosity. I feel like LoTR fans thought “Let’s see how bad they screw this up” while GoT fans thought “They can’t screw it up any worse.”
and Galadriel had major chemistry with everybody. WTF? This isn’t even remotely accurate.
“Calm down, kid. You’re only the second oldest person in this scene.”
Well she didn’t know that! I’m sure she is embarrassed about it now
I was just making a lazy joke, but now that I think about it that’s probably why she related so well to him. He’s like her ex-best friend’s divorced dad.
Your quoted source literally says the opposite of what you are trying to imply.
“But according to Salke, the series has worked. “This desire to paint the show as anything less than a success — it’s not reflective of any conversation I’m having internally,” she says.”
Bias strikes again.
Amazon would not be making a season two if they were not making money off the series, or.. at the very least, sure that they will in the future.
(Also, the source of “insiders”? Is not a source. Its someone guessing unless there is documentation or a name). I understand that Hollywood Reporter used the same term to avoid naming a source, and they are just as guilty.)
As far as I know they paid for 5 seasons, so they’re making them whether they’re good or shitty.
And if that’s true, it strongly incentivizes them to claim success for the first one no matter what. If the season had only been finished by one guy, they’d be claiming that Gary from Fort Wayne was 100% of the target demo and they saw virtually unprecedented growth potential.
Yeah pretty much.
They still have to pay more for the actual filming, so if they thought it was going to lose more money than it brought in they’d cut bait. Unless it’s some higher up’s ego project where he doesn’t mind if he loses money on it, he just wants it made.
I don’t even see how paying a billion dollars plus for all of this is actually a money making proposition to begin with. It’s gonna take centuries to make all of that back on Prime subs.
it’s not reflective of any conversation I’m having internally
This sentence says it all.
It’s the entertainment equivalent of my grandma telling me I’m handsome.
It’s like MBA wanker-speaker for “MY HEADCANON!!!”
Amazon makes a billion dollars a day. Half a billion on a tv show is basically half a day’s profits. That’s not a big expenditure for them all things considered.Others have also pointed out that the original story suggests that 37% was actually over 9 million people which is pretty decent viewership when you look at what other shows are doing viewership. Quality and whatever people feel about the lore is a different conversation, but I don’t think Amazon is crazy for saying it is a success.
Other shows don’t cost as much though…Amazon may make billions in revenue, but it has a ton in costs too. I can imagine why 9 million would be a disappointment.
9 million who finished the entire series is significantly higher than people finishing other series – not just on Amazon, but everywhere. According to Parrot Analytics Rings of Power was 16.7 times more in demand than the average TV show in the US.I don’t think they want to lose money on Rings of Power, but I think you also have to look at how success is measured in streaming and that is still an issue. If the numbers are accurate, the 9 million people finishing the show being 37% of the audience means 24-25 million people watched minimally the pilot. By comparison, the highest rated show last year according to Nielsen was Yellowstone’s finale with 13.1 million viewers. The only thing with numbers similar to Rings of Power on linear television were football games. So if the metric for success is viewership, Rings of Power is up there. If it’s eyes on pre-roll ads, it had a lot of eyes on it.
9 million who finished the entire series is significantly higher than people finishing other series – not just on Amazon, but everywhere.But Rings of Power also cost significantly more than other series (including, I’m willing to bet, Yellowstone). I think you also have to look at how success is measured in streaming and that is still an issue.No doubt, and I think it’s a mistake to rely on viewership, even assuming whatever viewership data does get released is accurate. When a traditional network television show is broadcast, stations charge to run ads on them. The more watched a show, or a football game, is, the more money they can charge for ads. And if something is broadcast OTA, the only limit to how many people could conceivably watch a show is the number of people with either a digital antenna or at least an ISP that lets them stream live broadcasts of basic channels.The ceiling for streaming shows is lower, because only the people that subscribe to your streaming service can watch your show, and that means the only revenue a streaming show can generate (excluding future revenue like licensing and physical sales) is from new people signing up or lapsed customers reactivating their subscriptions just to watch your show.Most streaming services spend more on programming than they actually make from subscriptions in the hopes that they’ll produce a Game of Thrones or a Stranger Things – a show so popular that word-of-mouth gets people to sign up to watch. But we’re also seeing services like Disney+, Netflix, and HBO Max rein in spending because their growth is plateauing. Rings of Power has been in development for years, and strikes me as the type of show that no service would greenlight today, at least not at the budget it was originally greenlit for.I say all of this because I think it’s necessary context that viewership alone leaves out. Yes, Amazon makes a ton of money every day (though for the record, Amazon makes a billion dollars a day in revenue, not profit).Corporations still allocate resources and set budgets for departments with the expectation that investments, like Rings of Power, will generate more money. Just because the first season didn’t financially cripple Amazon doesn’t mean they won’t be pleased if it didn’t meet whatever expectations they set for it.
My point is that the narrative that it didn’t meet whatever expectations they have is a narrative largely being built around claims that viewership was bad that wasn’t backed up by the actual numbers that were reported. Amazon’s layoffs are not being driven by Prime Video – regardless of its wealth – they are being driven by the divisions that were performing less well. Amazon also relies on streaming for pre-roll ads that point people back to Amazon – whether its products or other shows.Arguing that Amazon is lying about the success of the show to save face is silly. If they were going to lie about success, they’d be pretending that the Twitch division was ever a worthwhile investment. You even said it’s a mistake to rely on viewership. So if we’re ignoring viewership, Amazon has said REPEATEDLY it was a huge success for them, that they consider it turning a profit, that it helped contribute to the Q3 sales jump, and they have claimed the show contributed to increased book sales. So highest viewership ever for the streamer and other metrics all turning a profit, and yet, everyone is trying to say it was a failure because it cost a lot of money from a company that makes a lot of money despite the fact that those involved repeatedly counter that argument.
My point is that the narrative that it didn’t meet whatever expectations they have is a narrative largely being built around claims that viewership was bad that wasn’t backed up by the actual numbers that were reported.And my point is that your assertion that the viewership numbers “weren’t bad” is based on the notion that other shows would love to have as many viewers as Rings of Power did, which doesn’t take into account that other shows don’t cost as much as Rings of Power did. And not for nothing, the reported numbers claim that The Boys was more watched than RoP, and that Netflix, which was only recently surpassed in December as the service with the most subscribers, cancels shows with less than a 50% completion rate. In a vacuum, I would find those numbers compelling enough to back up the claim that Rings of Power underperformed. Arguing that Amazon is lying about the success of the show to save face is silly.I’m not arguing that Amazon is lying. You even said it’s a mistake to rely on viewership.Yes, and I stand by that. Maybe the 9 million people that made it all the way to the end were all new subscribers. Maybe Amazon is making a ton of money off Tolkien merchandise. Maybe RoP viewers were more likely to engage with the pre-roll ads than people that watch Jack Reacher. We can’t know for sure from the outside, and we have no third-party data to confirm what Amazon claims, just speculation. and yet, everyone is trying to say it was a failure because it cost a lot of money from a company that makes a lot of moneyI’m just saying, if that’s your metric, then every single show or movie that Disney Studios has ever produced is not a failure because Disney the International Corporation makes a lot of money every day. That’s simply not how corporate accounting works.
If you’re talking about a creative failure because the show isn’t good that’s up to the viewer. If you’re talking about how many people actually watched it, spent money, and may be poised to stick around for season 2 that’s not an insignificant estimate. Yes, it’s a costly show, but claiming the ROI isn’t there isn’t born out of the numbers. Minimally, 9 million watched to the end. If some of the larger viewership numbers are real that number could be 41 million globally. Amazon includes in their shareholders report what the value add is for each property and they have said that Rings of Power saw an uptick in books and merch for LotRs and served as a retention tool. There’s no reason to doubt that and the only reason people are saying “well 37% is bad” is because they want to feed the narrative that the show was bad and therefore performed poorly. The show could be bad and perform well. Shows do it all the time.
Throughout this this entire thread you’re still ignoring the fact that nearly 2/3 of the people who started watching the show thought it was so bad they couldn’t go on. I’m in the third who finished and thought it was so awful I hate-watched until the end just so I could mock it with everyone else on the internet. Are you accounting for people like me?
Hate watching is still watching. From Amazon’s perspective that doesn’t matter. If quality mattered, we wouldn’t live in a world where MILF Manor is a show. But eyes on a trainwreck are still eyes on a trainwreck. I’m not arguing whether it was a good show. I’m arguing that we don’t have the data to suggest it was a failure or that Amazon is lying.I’m not ignoring that 2/3’s didn’t finish it. I’m saying that 2/3’s of a very large number is different than 1/2 of a smaller number. If the numbers are accurate from what was reported – 2/3’s of the viewers who watched the pilot is still 9 million people – as it is reported 24 million and a change watched the pilot. Unless 24 million people also started 1899, for example, the fact that 50% of viewers finished 1899 doesn’t prove more people finished it. There is no way to know that 37% is inherently bad unless streamers start releasing numbers. Unless we have those numbers, we can’t use that as “proof” of a failure.
Half a billion on a single TV show is still a lot of money Amazon would rather not spend right now lately where they’re having to lay off thousands of workers and halt the construction of their fancy new HQ in DC because of overspending and revenue dropping.
Almost no layoffs have come from Prime Video, however, or content creation. Many of them have been related to gaming and Twitch streaming as well as the marketing positions related to them along with several related to the end of Book Depository. Amazon is also still actively hiring in several areas including Prime Video. Even the construction pause wasn’t solely down to overspending or revenue dropping. They are only requiring workers to be in 3 days per week post-Pandemic. That means that they don’t need the third building they were planning to build in all likelihood. Regardless of the reasons, none of that has anything to do with Rings of Power especially if 25 million people watched the pilot and 9 million completed the entire series. If the series was 16.7 times more in demand than any other show on streaming when it was released including House of the Dragon and it was their most watched show ever, it’s not the loss people want it to be because they didn’t like the show.
Okay, but the fact is they’re down in net income for last year and had billions in losses, so they are probably disappointed and nervous that billions was spent on a show that had lower than expected returns. But like Commk correctly said upthread, it seems like they and you as well will claim success for this no matter what. Even though far more people completely watched and liked The Boys than this show.
Has Amazon said The Boys isn’t successful? Because they seem to be pretty complimentary and enthusiastic about that one. Did I say The Boys wasn’t successful? The relative success of The Boys doesn’t prove or disprove whether Rings of Power is considered a success by the company. It also doesn’t disprove that Rings of Power was the most watched pilot. Viewing minutes also doesn’t prove or disprove who had more viewers since it does not account for unique viewers. So to go back to where we started – All of these numbers and percentages don’t mean much until or unless streamers start to provide hard viewership numbers. It also doesn’t mean much until we know what the goal is of the streamer – If Rings of Power sold a bunch of Lord of the Rings books, does that count more or less towards Amazons goals? If more people clicked through pre-roll ads to other Amazon Prime shows is that more or less successful? It’s fine to not creatively like a show. I didn’t love the finale of Game of Thrones. That doesn’t change that for HBO the finale was a success with huge viewership numbers.
I never that The Boys wasn’t successful, but that it’s more successful than the show they just spent nearly a billion dollars on. And like I said, you and Amazon will claim success for this no matter what or how bad the numbers are, so there isn’t much to argue and debate about since it’s obvious you’re a big fan of the show and of Amazon. And FYI, I actually completed watched and liked the show, but I get it how so many people didn’t and can say that Amazon wasted money and time on it.
I don’t even think I finished the first episode. It just didn’t grab me and I loved the LOTR movies and have read the books (not the Silmarillion).Say what you will about The Wheel of Time, but I felt that was much more accessible.
I finished it, but there were chunks where I was totally zoned out.
The show shouldn’t have waited until episode 6 to get good.
Most 12-22 episode seasons usually only get good around episode 6.
But yeah, with an 8 episode season it’s too little too late.
“Completion rate” seems like a dogass metric in the world of streaming, where series are presented as ten-hour assignments I’m free to engage with at my preferred rate. I’m Lucy with a mouthful of chocolates over here and you’re judging the quality of the bon-bons off how many I haven’t managed to fit into my mouth.
Seems like an odd point to make. People start watching, then stop watching, and after six months haven’t come back to it, it seems pretty fair to conclude that they don’t really care all that much. Yeah, I suppose it does make a difference stopped watching because they hated it and can’t imagine ever watching another minute, or if they stopped watching because they got distracted by other shows that they like a whole lot more and figure they might come back to finish it later if/when they run out of other things to watch, but people do keep watching shows all the time, finishing seasons, it isn’t an impossible task. Rings of Power isn’t the only show they do this for, they’re comparing shows to other shows, and how many people turn it off without coming back to it compared to other shows seems like a reasonable and interesting thing to measure.
It seems like a flawed metric though until/unless streaming services start to report unique viewers and not streaming minutes. You can’t assume that 50% of 1899s audience is better than 37% of Rings of Power unless they start at the same number. I’m not especially a Tolkien or Rings of Power fan, but given Amazon has touted it as their most watched show, 37% might actually be a high number.
I mean, every metric is flawed if “not telling the whole story” is a flaw. Like, Rings of Power can be the number one show in streaming if you’re counting unique viewers, where it counts the same if a person watches 15 seconds of it and stops or if a person watches the whole thing 15 times. And The Office can be the number one streaming show if you’re counting minutes streamed, because a smaller audience watches the whole thing over and over and over again. But that stuff’s just marketing. You can’t judge a show without looking at everything, from stuff like the budget and publicity it generates for the platform to signups/retention to number of viewers and how many viewers finish it. HBO used to be known for keeping around shows with low numbers of viewers because the viewers were dedicated to the point that they would subscribe to HBO for that show. A show that only 500,000 people care about is the easiest cancel ever at any broadcast network, but if those 500,000 people are paying $10 a month for HBO just because they love that show, congrats on getting renewed for another season.
Agreed – But Amazon is saying that all of those metrics that they are looking at be it subscription retention, uptick in book sales, or the value add to the Prime library, Rings of Power ticked the boxes for them. Because again – the retention of viewers that allegedly finished was at least 9 million viewers if you use the lowest estimates (that viewership peaked on day 1). If the 100 million viewers number is real worldwide which I’m skeptical of because of how those numbers are reported then about 41 million people globally finished the show (I’m averaging the global percent and the US percent). So, again, people claiming this was a little watched unsuccessful show based on the percentages are missing a larger reason why Amazon might be very much on board with their investment because at the very low end of the numbers, they’re look at around 10 million subscribers apt to stay.
If you spend a half a billion dollars on eight episodes, and figuratively no one watches the last four, then you’ve wasted a quarter of a billion dollars. What is the point of spending millions on something no one* watches?*not literally no one but in terms of scale
If only an eighth of your audience finishes the thing but your audience started ten times bigger than the other guy’s, that’s probably a win. I could buy the idea that the completion rate has been driven down a bit by a large number of viewers who half-watched episode 1 because of the advertising (they really marketed the hell out of this thing) but weren’t going to finish anyway.I don’t really think that’s the story here, because while I loved it, even I thought it was slow going in the beginning there. But Lindsay just seems to be saying something like that wouldn’t be communicated by completion rate and I agree.
If only an eighth of your audience finishes the thing but your audience started ten times bigger than the other guy’s, that’s probably a win.I’m not sure I follow. Setting viewership records is nice for marketing and executive egos, but in streaming it doesn’t matter nearly as much as it did in the network television era, where multiple shows were on at the same time and viewers had to pick one to watch. Now, if I have a subscription to both Netflix and Amazon Prime, I could conceivably watch all of the original shows I want from both platforms, because there’s no real conflict.Also, as has been reported frequently, this show is the most expensive TV show ever produced. There is no “other guy” because we can deduce that any show you try to compare RoP to did not cost as much. The more you spend, the more you need to make in revenue to break even. In network television, you needed more viewers because viewership numbers justified whatever rate the network was charging for ads. In streaming, ideally what you want is new people signing up or lapsed customers reactivating their subscriptions just to watch your big, expensive TV show, but at a minimum you’d want as many existing subscribers as possible to actually watch all of the 8 expensive episodes that you produced.So a 37% retention rate might be amazing for a cheap, niche sitcom. It might even be good for the most comparable show, like the Game of Thrones prequel. But according to this reporting, Amazon wanted 50%, and I have to assume it’s because they spent so much money on the damn thing and have a smaller active base than Netflix, Disney+, or even HBO.
“as many existing subscribers as possible”I think this is the key point. What’s possible? “All the subscribers” isn’t a reasonable goal. We have no idea what Amazon’s internal research suggests they could expect or what they were hoping for. We don’t even know what the various standards for success are across the industry because none of the information is released aside from stray dispatches in the trades.
I regret bringing in the concept of “the other guy,” which I was just using to note that completion rate isn’t capturing all (or even much) of the total picture. All that I’m trying to say is that Amazon probably has multiple targets across multiple statistics that determine if, for them, the show is a success. My suspicion is those targets are low (price tag be damned) because Bezos has been pretty frank about the purpose of Prime Video being “if you tend to watch things on Amazon, you’ll be more likely to buy a pair of boots there.” Their concern with turning a profit solely on subscriptions is qualitatively different than e.g. Netflix’s.
That would be me.
I found it mostly absurd and ridiculous when it wasn’t flat out boring. The hobbit characters were fun and charismatic, and Elrond and Durin had great chemistry, but every other character was a chore to watch. I have yet to talk to any of my friends or family who watched it who actually enjoyed it and are looking forward to a second season. At the end of the day, the showrunners just didn’t understand how to put together a compelling cast of characters to tell an engaging story that people could connect with. It looked great, and the acting was frequently solid (with some major exceptions), but none of that will matter if you’re making serious missteps that go to the very foundations that the show is built on. It’s a mediocre show that wasn’t worth anywhere near the amount of time and money that went into making it.
I loved it. Watched the whole thing straight away, but then, I’m not offended by black Dwarves and Mermaids.
Enjoyed this show a lot. I’m glad that Amazon are in so deep with what they’ve spent on it – financially and in reputation – that they can’t cancel it.
There is such a thing as perspective though – $465 million is a ton of money to spend on a show…Until you remember that Amazon makes over a billion a day from all of its services. So a show cost half a day’s profits. Additionally, for 37% to mean anything, you’d have to know how many people it was. You can’t just use a present to equate two shows unless you know their audience was the same. If the billions of minutes of streaming in the first three days is anything to go by that 37% might still be a significant number of people.
The io9 version of the story, linking to the Hollywood Reporter, said the Day 1 global audience was 25 million viewers. That means – at minimum – 9.25 million people watched the full series.Since not everyone watched the show on Day 1 (myself included), and retention rates were higher globally than in the U.S., the true number would be significantly higher than that. Not to mention, there will be a fair number of people who finally get around to Season 1 around the time Season 2 starts (especially if we assume S2 is tied to the NFL package rollout).
I have a feeling there’s a lot of linear channels who would love an audience of 9 million+ on a budget that equates to only a half of a days profits. Whether it was good or bad, I can see why Amazon is pleased.
For once I’m in the majority. I didn’t make it past episode 2. It was just boring, slow, and it looked like shit. It’s kind of hard to go from the movies (which I mostly liked) to the comparatively low budget look of a television show. I’m also just completely burnt out on the never ending flood of these IPs. Especially one based on events that didn’t exist in the Hobbit books (which I have read once in my life and didn’t like at all), so it was all clearly for fanbois and to capitalize on that existing fanbase.To be fair, I’m also completely burnt out on Star Wars (even Andor. Saw one episode and called it quits), the MCU, GoT and all the other tired properties.
If you adjust for inflation they spent basically the same amout of money to make this first season alone. The same amount of money of the original Jackson trilogy. And considering the extended versions of the movies… Rings of Power whole season was SHORTER than that!And still with better tecnology, cheaper digital effects… they did not achieve the same level of visual grandeur… and don’t let me start on quality of writing… :DCheers
People here have already said they found it boring, slow, and disappointing.
A show can be slow and still interesting, even entertaining. But this was all so charmless it just wasn’t.
The music is probably one of the top 10 best TV scores of all time though, and Morfydd Clark’s eyes are lovely.
Feels like maybe a format change could help, make it more like mini-movies or chapters akin to Sherlock or the Mandolorian.
So what happened? Did people get three episodes in and discover this wasn’t Game of Thrones and there was no sex in it?
Nope, they got three episode in and discovered this was not Tolkien and there was no magic, or talent, or heart, or story, or beauty in it. ;)It was a badly written corrupted and childish fanfic and it deserved to be expunged form reality.Cheers
It got better as it went along but the first 3 episodes were a slog, I was tempted to give up.
Ding Ding Ding! Me! I loved it. I’d watch it again. I’ll do a rewatch before S2 comes out. Seems like most of the commenters on here are… males. Ask some ladies how they felt about the show. The “boring” parts I assume are people referring to the Arondir/Bronwyn story and the Numenor stuff. The love story was there for the romantics in the audience. The “love theme” was great and swoony. I bought they were into each other. It was kinda over-the-top in a Doctor Zhivago way in that the Love Theme was very “can’t stop/won’t stop.”Numenor was a lot of table setting for future seasons. Eight episodes – not enough time for Numenor to pay off. My take on the now-infamous Arondir Brain Fart: Look, when he handed Theo the bundle of rags, maybe the showrunners wanted us to think Arondir was still possibly Sauron. He never really made it on to the suspicious lists at the time. (Therefore I suspected him.) I thought the scene could be read as “Yeah, I’m a sleeper agent – here’s a bundle of rags, dipshit.” If the show fucked up, then the show fucked up. It doesn’t kill the whole show for me. Put in a flashback in Season 2 where Halbrand does a spell on him or something, “Oooh! Doood… Look into my eyes. You will think there is an evil sword hilt in this bundle of rags… Alakazzam!”I think another thing both covid and streaming’s solidifying business model has wrought: It takes two years between seasons. At Least. The Five Season Run of “The Rings of Power” won’t be done until 2032. In an age of bingeing, some people don’t want to get hooked on something until its at least half-way done filming.I also don’t think Amazon has figured out how to promo it’s old series in order to build cult-classic status. They probably should have Thursday be “Free Promo Day,” log into Amazon Classic and watch free eps of some shows in the run-up to Thursday Night Football. Then keep the channel going until midnight and have football recap come back on for free at 11. I mean, it would be kinda hilarious to go “You’ve been watching Amazon Preview Thursday. If you have Prime, football coverage will begin at 7. Otherwise stay tuned for our Marvelous Ms Maisel four episode bonus binge.” But if you want your back catalogue to earn money and get some new viewers…
I thought the Harfoots were the boring parts. Arondir was fine, if a bit wooden.
Not to mention that their accents were offensive, bordering on actionable.
My wife thought it sucked, was boring, and ruined many of her fav characters (Galadriel specifically).Happy?
As did mine.
You shoved that in my face so hard I got a nose bleed. Other than that, I’m happy if you’re happy.
I loved the whole thing too (with the Harfoots being my favorite part, actually). There are a few hiccups in the narrative, but nothing that I found to be close to deal breaking. The production design made it very easy to get swept up in the world and just enjoy being in Middle Earth. Right now, the show feels like it’s a half-step away from being something special. A lot of time had to be spent on character introductions and world building and eight episodes isn’t a whole lot of time to pay everything off. I’m optimistic that there’s a lot to build on in the second season. Maybe some of the communal desire to see the show fail will dissipate by then.
How much did Amazon pay you?
I just want a show with good writing. Is that so much to ask?
Me too. But replace “show” with “pop culture website”.
As always, read the article linked to, an in-depth journalistic article, filled with things that aren’t so stupid as to say, “but is this pretty obvious failure being seen (or at least spoken of) as a failure over in Bezosland?” Bezoland? Are you a child?The actual article is very interesting and actually has room for commentary, but AVC is a step away from a listicle at this point. I hope you’re getting paid higher than a Screenrant freelancer at least.
I thought it was good
It’s a show I watched and mostly enjoyed but fuck the first few episodes are slow as shit. The second half of the season kicks into gear in a big way but I just wish those earlier episodes had some greater narrative momentum. Even as someone who has read the books, I struggled to follow who was who at times as well.
It was better than HotD. And the Hobbit movies. I’ll watch however many seasons they make.
I didn’t finish it. :0 I enjoyed jumping back into that world and a lot of the nerdy heavy fantasy stuff, but pretty much every character in the show was so boring. I almost would have preferred a straight up nature or history documentary set in that world to the characters we got.
Strictly speaking, everyone working to promote the mighty evils has also decided what to do with their time, so I don’t think the Gandalf quote really applies.
The Rings of Power is not Bezos and bad mouthing the series is not class warfare. It’s more a substitute for class analysis, or any analysis really, and sadly typical of the low abilities of AVClub writers. But then, I didn’t finish House of the Dragon nor The Boys, while I did finish Rings of Power. I have my criticisms of the plot conveniences, but everyone who singles out Rings over Game of Thrones is spouting BS. We can only guess what their real objection is. The guesses aren’t flattering.
Eh, i enjoyed it. not sure it really needed to be the most expensive series ever made or whatever. its certainly not GoT but i don’t think more blatantly imitating that series would have done amazon any favors, either.
HAH! The joke is on you! I never even started.
Still, Bezos didn’t buy Twitter, so he remains winning.
I enjoyed it enough in the moment and I will watch Season 2. But I won’t rewatch Season 1 because, in retrospect, it didn’t really hang together.There was definitely a lot of effort visible on screen but, with that budget, you’d think they could have a second pass at the actual plot.
I sort of respect that the twist was that the two mysterious fellows are… exactly who you thought they were, all along. Utimately though, that is weak sauce.
If people simply mounted their TVs higher, so that they were looking UP when watching the Rings of Power, then viewership would have floated instead of sinking.
OG = original gangster
I couldn’t make it through the first episode; the dreary characters put me to sleep, literally. Phooey!
I saw Fellowship of the Ring 17 times in the theater (don’t ask me why; just know that when Galadriel turns green and warns Frodo that she’d become dark and terrible was always the best possible time for a bathroom break), and yet somehow, this show couldn’t even come close to drawing me in. So, color me unsurprised — given the largely mixed reviews and the fact that at least some members of the target audience, myself included, had little to no interest — that people couldn’t make it through.