Lord of the Rings: TV critics split on Amazon’s The Rings of Power

The first reviews are in for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — and they’re resoundingly positive.

The majority of critics — including The West’s TV Editor Clare Rigden — gave the eight-part series four out of five stars, with The Guardian’s Rebecca Nicholson writing that the big budget spectacle is “so astounding it makes House of the Dragon look amateur”.

The show, which will premiere this Friday at 9am Perth time on Prime Video, takes viewers on a thrilling journey back to Middle-earth.

Set several thousand years before the events that transpire in Tolkien’s tales, the series is set in the fabled “Second Age” of Middle-earth. The show follows some of the realms’ inhabitants as they fight to overcome the dark forces spreading throughout their kingdoms.

The series had its premiere on Tuesday night in London — critics were then free to post their first reviews.

“Lavish and sweeping, The Rings Of Power puts its money where its mouth is,” Empire Magazine said.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg called the show “a promising start.”

“In the second episode, the story starts to actually move along and there are characters and scenes that I found utterly charming in the way a show like this requires for long-term survival,” he wrote.

BBC’s Stephen Kelly wrote: “Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay may have come from nowhere to develop The Rings of Power, but they display a deft understanding of Tolkien’s soothing rhythms, his grandeur and musicality. It’s a pleasure to hear the characters talk.”

Not all the reviewers were quite as effusive. Though the majority shared the above sentiment there were a few outliers. Darren Franich from Entertainment Weekly wrote: “Amazon’s prequel is kind of a catastrophe”.

The Daily Mail UK’s Christopher Stevens, in an article since removed from their online site, said he thought the series was “so staggeringly bad, it’s hilarious.”