the lord of the rings the rings of power

a production that somehow makes a world supposedly inhabited by millions of humans, dwarves, and elves feel like it's populated by no more than fifty or sixty people. for a story on this scale, that's a remarkable failure of world-building.

the reason this show is so widely disliked isn't that it strays from the lore, nor is it because the cast is ethnically diverse.

the real problem is that it's lazily written.

the characters rarely feel like real people you can connect with, and so many plot points are introduced as if they're incredibly important, only to be casually discarded a scene or two later. it's hard to stay invested when the story itself doesn't seem to care about its own setup.

even peter jackson's *the hobbit*, with all of its questionable cgi, still makes me feel like i'm actually in middle-earth.

and no, the show's biggest problem isn't the diverse casting. people keep acting like that's the main criticism when it isn't. the writing is just bad. the story is bad. it's that simple.

what's really maddening is the budget. how do you spend around a billion dollars and end up with something that feels this lifeless? where did all that money go?

it's hard not to joke that everyone involved must have been cashing checks while nobody stopped to ask, "are we actually making a good show?"

and how did bezos sign off on all of this? at this point, the only explanation that makes any sense is that the budget somehow looked better on a tax return than it did on screen.