Why The Rings Of Power works better as a binge watch
If you haven't started Prime's pricey series yet, or just want to go back and rewatch, you'll get more out of Rings Of Power if you take it all in at once
TV Features The Lord of the Rings
If you’ve been waiting for the entire first season of The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power to be available before diving in, your time has come. You can now watch all eight episodes on Prime Video, all at once or at your leisure. It’s a risky strategy in this day and age—when spoilers abound on social media (there won’t be any major spoilers here, though, so proceed without fear)—but in the case of this series, your patience might just pay off.
Evening out the pace
The Rings Of Power is a show that takes its time, luxuriating in the elaborate details of its fantastic settings. The production team didn’t put all that money on the screen to just rush past it, after all. For those who watched from week to week, this lingering pace could feel sluggish at times. The show doles out its plot points sparingly in favor of character development and world building. Things do kick into gear later in the season, but getting to that point is a bit of a slog. These pacing issues tend to smooth out when you watch the episodes back to back. They flow seamlessly from one to the next, with a momentum that’s steady and deliberate. And it’s still less of a time commitment than the extended version of Peter Jackson’s original Lord Of The Rings trilogy, which clocks in at 11 hours and change.
Seeing the forest and the trees
Watching the episodes back to back also helps strengthen the connections between them. There are through lines and callbacks throughout the first season that become clearer with a condensed viewing time. Your attention to these subtle particulars will be rewarded. You might catch references you would have otherwise missed, or be able to trace a character arc more fully as it develops over time. There is a grand plan at work in this show, and it comes together even better when it isn’t chopped up into smaller parts.
Those who did watch Rings Of Power weekly, or tried to, may find this approach works better for them as well. Without giving anything away, if you’ve seen the finale you can imagine how certain scenes and character motivations might play differently the second time around. It’s like going back and watching a murder mystery again once you know who the killer is. You may see the clues with different eyes. We’d especially recommend the binge model to anyone who found they couldn’t get through the first two or three episodes and stopped watching there. Now that you don’t have to wait a week for the next one, you may experience it differently.
Watch it your way
Another advantage to binging after the show has been fully released is that you can do it on your own schedule. There’s no need to watch at the same time as anyone else. Take in a few episodes in a row, take a break, then come back later for more. Or settle in and watch all eight in a single day. If you’ve managed to go this long without being drawn into the discourse, it doesn’t matter how long you take to finish. Jump back in when you’re ready.
Of course, your mileage may vary. There are certainly plenty of fans out there who enjoyed watching Rings Of Power from week to week and have no desire to dive back into it right away. The question of whether to binge or not to binge is one that streamers and viewers still haven’t quite figured out yet. Some shows benefit from a slower rollout, extending the pop-culture conversations around them. Others might do better when they’re released all at once, triggering a wave of FOMO that brings in even more viewers. That’s just taking into account viewership numbers, not necessarily the viewing experience. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. The beauty is that the versatility of streaming gives viewers a choice, so you can decide for yourself the best way to consume your favorite content.
37 Comments
Would’ve worked even better with different showrunners who had experience doing serialized storytelling on TV before.
It comes in quite handy when you’re familiar with the medium you’re working in.
Yes I bet nobody associated with the production at all had any experience with…what did you call it? Tellyvision?
We watched this over the weekend in a single push and, overall, liked it. There were some pacing issues, but I’m not familiar enough with the entire lore to have been bothered with any changes to the source material. The Peter Jackson movies are all I had to go on. I’m not sure what the general reception for Galadriel has been, but that actress alone kept us interested. She’s super intense and, if not for wanting to get back to her scenes, I may have opted not to finish.
From what I understand, having only read Fellowship and seen all the Jackson movies, is that much of what this show is covering is laid out more along the lines of bullet points. Like there is mention of major events and characters, but outside of that not much else. So the team behind ROP has a loose outline of what happened during this Age, so they have lot’s of room to improvise and add stuff. I have been watching this and HOTD, and enjoy both, but you can REALLY see the money put into ROP, the intro alone of stunning, and the sets and world looks stunning. Also I have seen it said this first season, out of a planned 5, is more like an extended pilot. Since unless your DEEP into LOTR lore you have no idea who ANY of these characters are, outside of Galadriel and Elrond, so them doing a good bit of world/character building is very important moving forward.
The extremely short version is that the events are laid out in brief in the appendices at the end of Return of the King, and more fully fleshed out in The Silmarillion and some other posthumous works. However, Amazon only has the rights to LotR (including the appendices), so they cannot include details from the other works and must invent new details themselves. (And it might even be a copyright violation if they included other details). Needless to say, none of that has stopped people from complaining that they’re violating lore that either doesn’t exist or to which they don’t have the rights, though.
Yeah just like they have bitched about black dwarves or elves it just seems kind of stupid. At the end of the day the time period being covered by ROP has precious little fleshing out, evidentially there is more in the Simillarion but Amazon doesn’t have the rights to that, so there is plenty of wiggle room to make ROP it’s own “thing” but at the end of the day superfans will ALWAYS find something to complain about.
The true joke to me is that many of these “fans” have completely missed the point. Tolkien was very deliberately writing folklore, which by nature often has conflicting stories and characterizations. Even within his works there is a fair amount of inconsistency (though he did try to minimize it). Any new works are going to have some changes to lore, whether because of medium or narrative substance – and that’s fine. That’s how folklore and mythology work. To me, the real Tolkien fans (which isn’t really a thing, since gatekeeping is pointless and stupid, but rhetorical points are not irrelevant) are the ones who have engaged with the material enough to understand that, rather than the ones who get their knickers in a twist because Galadriel dared show any emotion.
Right and in this case they aren’t directly adapting a specific book rather what amounts to a collection of stories about stuff that happened hundred of years prior. Unlike HOTD where Martin devoted one of his books to be basically a history book. I have enjoyed ROP so far, you can certainly see where the money went as it’s stunning.
One important detail to add: The Amazon team got the bid in part because they offered a partnership with the Tolkien Estate so they’d have a seat at the table and veto rights. So while the show has a lot of freedom they also can’t go off the rails too much, contrary to what certain ppl claim.
Also entirely true. They allegedly consulted closely with the estate on compressing the timeline (which was needed for this type of adaptation), and Simon Tolkien is listed as a consultant in every episode.
Right? Finding out how closely they work together really eased any worry in that regard I might have had beforehand. I also thought many interviews with the showrunners are actually pretty thoughtful in that you get a feeling they are actually well versed with the lore and its pitfalls, so that changes are either deliberate to make the adaptation work (like the time crunch) or something that is indeed inspired by some lesser known lore details (like you mentioned in your other post, there are lots of conflicting stories/characterisations and they just picked one that might not have been the popular fandom choice) or something that we simply do not have the whole picture yet because this is just the start of a 5 season show (judging by interviews the last word about the mithril thing hasn’t been spoken).
I mean, if it’s good enough for the estate then who am I to decide what does and doesn’t break the lore? So many haters are so self-righteous about this thing like “the show is desecrating the holy scriptures!!” it’s ridiculous.
This may make it a better watch as a show in isolation, but my greatest enjoyment of the experience was breaking down what they were pulling from and thinking about changes made and diving into the source material on a weekly basis. Just bingeing it all would have been a lesser experience for me.
I don’t think I could hold my eyes open that long.
I don’t think you could either
thank you
I’ve mentioned this before regarding other shows. Depending on the viewer some shows are worth watching on a weekly basis, and some shows are better off just binging. It’s just a preference. In the end, the way some shows are made, they’re better off being binged. Of course there are some shows that are great regardless if you see them once a week or the whole thing in a couple of days.Regarding Rings of power, I binged watch three episodes and think it looks beautiful. It’s more Dune soap opera heavy than Witcher action fun so far, but I’m going with it. I think I would’ve been more bored with it if I did do it weekly.
I’ve heard its a series that’s more for all the book readers/side stories. My only exp w/ the books is The Hobbit (which I enjoyed) and I tried multiple times but couldn’t get past the 200-300 page mark of fellowship. So I did 3 eps and just found myself bored. Unfortunately I really haven’t seen any chemistry between the characters. I also kind of feel like DaggerElf is a cop who would stab me in the neck first and then brand my corpse w/ a mark of Sauron. I’ll keep going I guess but it seems like not for me.
Agree with this. I was a little bored with the first few episodes, but I watched the final 3 one after another and it was much better.
I found some of the series slow, but I do think it really picked up at the end and the season finale set up Season 2 really well. I agree that the whole first season was kind of like a pilot. It was a great deal of setup, but there was enough payoff and there’s enough interesting stuff there for me to tune into Season 2.
Another advantage of binging. Not having to read/listen to other people gripe about how it’s different from what they have personally decided Tolkein would have wanted or intended.
How many episodes do I need to get through before it stops being a slog? Currently halfway through episode 5 and I’m just not very interested. For what it’s worth, I think the original LOTR trilogy is great but I’m usually not that into the fantasy genre.
Six is the big (pardon the pun) eruption.
Well as mentioned elsewhere think of season one as one long pilot for the show. This show is taking place at a time where there isn’t a ton already fleshed out by Tolkien. These are characters and places that unless you are a Tolkien nerd we know VERY little about, outside of Galadriel and Elrond, so there needs to be a good bit of world/character building to set the stage for things to come.
I loved 1-5 for the lush settings, and the characters need fleshing out but still aren’t half bad, but of course your mileage may vary. If all you’re looking for is quicker pacing, yes, you’ll be satisfied after about one more episode (partway through 6, in other words). But I’d really encourage you to engage more with the beauty of the world. It’s a big part of where the much vaunted budget went, and word is that they deliberately tried to match the look of Jackson’s LOTR so that it felt like the same world. As you can tell, I found a lot of things to like about this show.
Currently halfway through episode 5 and I’m just not very interested.
Then stop watching.
Oh wow! What an insightful comment Miss Splinter! Who would have ever thought that I could just stop watching? Thank you.
The question was, “when will the season pick up it’s pace?” not, “where’s the off button on my remote?”
If you’re more than halfway through something and you’re not enjoying it, why keep watching?
From the article: “Things do kick into gear later in the season, but getting to that point is a bit of a slog.”My initial question: “How many episodes do I need to get through before it stops being a slog?”
I think this show would definitely work better in binge format. I watched it week-to-week and found the first half of the season tough going, just because of its languid pace but once it kicked into gear, it was far more engaging.I reckon I’ll rewatch it at some point over the upcoming summer and it’ll click better than. It sounds like perfect Christmas viewing.
Watched weekly and quite enjoyed it, now I’m going to binge it and I expect I will appreciate it even more. I was a little off-put by some of the writing decisions in regards to the source material but I’m willing to give it a chance and see where it goes. If I wanted to be a stickler for source fidelity I wouldn’t have liked the Jackson films much either.
Counterpoint. Binging TV is bad. Don’t do it
Why is it bad?
I started watching the series last weekend. I watched 4 episodes back to back and what sustained my interest was how lavish the visuals were. The story didn’t hold my attention. After 4 episodes i don’t have the desire to continue watching. The visuals lost their initial allure and the story is not that engaging. I might start binge-watching House of the Dragon, but is it worth it?
I’ve been taking my time and waited until most of the episodes had dropped but still only watch 1 or 2 episodes per week. I’m only up to episode 6 so far.
Still enjoying it far more than House of the Dragon.
I watched it weekly. The visual spectacle is what maintained my interest overall initially, until narrative momentum kicked in (at about the first big battle in the south lands), and the Galadriel and Elrond/Durin stories were the strongest both in acting and in story construction. I found the human and Harfoot stories lackluster. I think the whole show would have benefited from deeper focus on each story line, like going for a whole episode on each.
Nobody leaves the stream; and nobody streams alone.
Rings of Power works best when hate watched. Or not watched at all.