Rings of Power: On Five-Year Plans, False Starts, and TV’s Second Chances

Rings of Power’s first season is a muddled eight hours of television. The Internet is rife with accounts of its play-by-play sins. The charges are, in no special order: bad Tolkien; bad characters; bad dialogue; bad pacing. Depending on the critic, the solid work of its acting troupe, VFX, and set design buy it some charity, but the objections are surprisingly uniform.

But the words “first” and “season” contain one of the strangest truths about modern TV’s architecture. Rings is in its infancy, and not even the creators know its shape. What comes after may redeem it entirely. Now, the bigger problem is whether or not anyone will notice.

If a movie burns through its first twenty minutes without interest, it’s unlikely to improve. Film critic Roger Ebert coined “Brotman’s Law” to describe this: “If nothing has happened by the end of the first reel, nothing is going to happen.” That’s not the case with TV, which works in cycles punctuated by forced intermissions. It responds to its audience in real-time as we consume it.

After all, there are probably more bad first seasons than good ones in the history of television, even if you exclude those of stillborn shows like Manimal. People skip over Seinfeld’s and Parks and Rec. The first dozen episodes of Deep Space Nine and Next Generation are slogs. Despite claims to perfection, Breaking Bad had its hiccups and dead-ends. Anyone remember Jesse Pinkman’s brother? Anyone?

Certainly, Rings makes the sort of mistakes which are hard to overlook. The details are numerous (watch the play-by-plays), but the main culprit is its adoration for J.J. Abrams’ fabled “mystery box.” In a mystery box format, scenes are verses of a riddle, vehicles for raw data. Who’s comet man? What do those Cirth runes mean? Which one is Sauron in disguise? This approach to storytelling gains its strength from the potential of open questions and the promise of a grand unveiling.

But TV shows aren’t riddles. It’s the scene-to-scene electricity of character and immediate drama which propels an audience through stories, not puzzles. With its attention fixed on the finale, Rings skimps on both. The result is a season which lards its first half with misdirection and filler and hides the goodies in the back. The promise of better, it believes, will be enough. It isn’t. Throwaway scenes don’t somehow unlock the energy of later, more interesting ones. They’re thrown away.

Take Rings’ first two minutes, where it should be working hardest to grab our attention. Elf bullies smash wee Galadriel’s toy boat, she runs to her brother, and he imparts Very Important Words for her to remember in the episode’s third act. Everyone in this scene is an ageless being endowed with inhuman grace, but swap a few details (a tricycle for the origami boat, say) and it would fit in a biopic about coming of age in the Bronx.

Charitably, her brother’s advice itself is trivial. Uncharitably, it’s deepity. The vintage Middle-earth case of this watch may be worth a billion dollars, but the gears are cheap.

Amazon proudly announced that they have a five-year plan, but anything with this much fat on its bones may not survive. This is Peak TV, where the oxygen is thinner and the competition fiercer. Week after week, shows are hitting inboxes and queues—shows that lack Rings’ ambition, but have better notions of what they want to be. The rest of fantasy TV is a bit too obsessed with becoming political thrillers à la Game of Thrones, but it’s following a clear trail and market demographic. Sandman nails the dream-logic of Gaiman perfectly on the first try. Niche fare like Critical Role is hitting its mark and nailing what its audience wants.

Studios are being aggressive about pruning their content, too. Seinfeld or Next Generation probably wouldn’t get second seasons in this climate. It makes sense. In periods of scarcity, you ration supplies. In periods of abundance, you ration your time.

Still, maybe we shouldn’t succumb to that instinct entirely.