QuantumMechanic

Hmm. I suppose that'll probably happen because

And of course in Tolkien's cosmology it really would have been the last time they'd see each other. until the end of the entire world/universe. (Unlike the Elves whose spirits immediately go to Valinor on "death" and then get resurrected after a relatively short time.)

Don’t need to, of course, but I personally lean towards doing so when I think it might be a spoiler for the show. Someone might have read LotR but not Silmarillion so “book talk” can still be huge spoilers for the show.

One big-time migration, but also one that takes centuries. No one family/clan goes all that far in their lifetimes, but over the many centuries they pretty much all move from the species's starting point somewhere between the Misty Mountains and Greenwood the Great (much much later renamed Mirkwood when Sauron secretly sets up shop at Dol Goldur and casts an evil shadow on the woods), not crossing the Misty Mountains until around year 1050 of the Third Age, reaching Bree by around 1300 T.A., and then initially settling the Shire in 1601 T.A. The settling of the Shire is about 1800 years after this show, which (given the presence of characters like Isildur) is set in the final 200 years of the Second Age.

I've gotten engaged enough in the plot (though only barely) to see this season out to the end. I agree with you on the writing. Bleah city. I assume they are part of the big proto-Hobbit migration from the Misty Mountains/Valley of the Anduin westward to Arnor (where they were named Halflings by the Numenorean descendants there) and then (much later) Bree and (even later) the Shire.

To be fair, supposedly they have a 40-50 episode commitment, so they do have time. But IMHO the compressed timeline messes things up. I wonder how it would have gone if they had told different time segments of the second age (i.e. don't bother with the compressed timeline stuff), with the final season being the end of Numenor and the Last Alliance. So maybe this season is about the forging of the Rings (and sure, maybe compress the timeline a bit in that bit of history -- so instead of it being 200 years from the forging of the first of the Rings to the big war between the Elves and Sauron (Elves get defeated, of course) and Sauron's first defeat at the hands of the Numenoreans, make it be 2 or 5 or 10 years. Then jump ahead some centuries and write some story about Sauron gradually rebuilding his forces (now you can work in the mysterious Sauron stuff from this season) and can do the stuff with the protohobbits they're doing now. Touch on Numenor and show the beginnings of their turn towards evil. Then jump ahead again to the corruption, tragedy, and destruction of Numenor as described a couple of posts back.

So are we to take from the final scene on Numenor that Miriel was just pretending to be an asshole to the Elves, etc.? But then why say they both "feared" an Elf showing up? In the books, I will be ticked off if the Stranger with the Harfoots turns out to be Gandalf. I don't mind the show making up new things (what else can they do given the limited material they have the rights to!) but I don't like it when they break clear, unambiguous canon. And Gandalf shows up wayyyy later than this. I'm hoping against hope that if the Stranger is an Istari at all he's one of the unnamed Blue Wizards who arrived in the Second Age. As for Arondir and the Orcs, the Orcs must be searching for that Sword of No Good that Arondir's girlfriend's son (maybe Arondir's son?) has, right? For all my complaints about the show I do have to say I liked the whole attempted prison break scene. Though the warg looked like it had the face of a demented chihuahua. Would it be too much to make a warg look like a wolf?

This 3rd episode is the first one where the compressed Second Age timeline really drove me up the wall. We are in the closing 200 years of the Second Age (which we can tell from the presence of Elendil, Isildur, et al). Yet the Ring and Rings haven't even been forged yet and Sauron is this mysterious whisper and Galadriel has found plans for Sauron to eventually set up in Mordor. Are we really going to go from Sauron being this mystery that only a few believe is even still around to forging the rings, to having another war with the Elves, to being captured by the Numenoreans and being the vessel of their final corruption? Seems hard to make that all work, which is too bad because I think it could be a good story. Really, I think they could have told a better, more focused story (that even would have engaged the mundanes) if they had just set it starting around 3240 S.A., with the past already having happened (i.e. Rings forged 1600 years prior, etc.) and simply told the story of the downfall of Numenor, the founding of Gondor (and Arnor), and the Last Alliance. You could have plenty of action scenes -- Numenorean forces fighting Sauron's forces and capturing him. And then later, the battles of the Last Alliance, including the epic confrontation between Sauron, Gil-Galad, and Elendil on the slopes of Orodruin. You could have the scenes of Sauron further corrupting Ar-Pharazon and the court, blossoming into full Morgoth-worship. Plenty of chances to invent some good storylines set in the conflicts between The Faithful and the King's Men (could even have some doomed cross-faction romance if you wanted something like that). Nazgul have existed for almost 1000 years by this point. Use them! You could set some B-plot in Middle-Earth with the Elves fighting some rear-guard action against Sauron (before Ar-Pharazon shows up and wipes out Sauron's forces and captures him). Ah well...

So many good things in there you could build series on. You could have a romance/hero/action series with You could have dark, grim tragedy series with and on and on...

Clearly Elrond needs to be seen fighting with a hobnailed club :)

As someone with a physics degree the words to "Give Your Heart a Try" make me grind my teeth. But I still love the song and the show. The hair on my neck still stands up as midnight arrives and the clock finally starts singing!

Well, the songwriter was an actual Broadway composer (and won an Oscar for "Three Coins in a Fountain"! But yeah -- that is my favorite Christmas special of all and deserves more attention than it gets. (And if you don't cry at "Alone in the World" you're a cold, cold person...) And now at long last I know why Cornelius is always licking & smelling his pick through the entire show!

That's an underrated one! And in some ways this entire thread is one big "If I Could Only Get Back to Yesterday". 😉

Also, to extend what's said above (spoilered because it's some book stuff (character ages) -- it doesn't actually spoil anything):

Given when the show is set and the title of it and the sorts of things it was bound to touch on, I'm kinda surprised the Estate didn't allow them to buy the rights to Akallabêth and On the Rings of Power and the Third Age. Unless the production didn't want to buy them so as to be more free to break canon if desired?

Re: Valinor -- oh boy! :). I don't think these are really spoilers but since we're supposed to be very careful about book stuff in non-book forums... Re: Galadriel -- especially since she was desperate for fresh water once hauled onto the raft. That pretty handily belies the idea that even Elf super-endurance would have allowed her to swim all the way back to Middle-Earth.

Don't feel too bad. Most of this has no meaning for us LotR book fans, either. Now, we do have an excellent idea of what's in that box and we know why Celebrimbor wants a forge (hint: ). But all that other stuff? We're just as in the dark as you are.

But that would be an explicit, no-holds-barred contradiction with the actual running text of LotR and/or the Appendices which say that Gandalf arrived in Middle-Earth at the Grey Havens and that Cirdan, who was the custodian of Narya, gave Narya to Gandalf, having perceived his nature and mission.

Ok, so now I want to see Dream as one of the presenters on GBBO. 🤣

Said worry which is validated by the reaction to even the softened Dream here and in other fora.

So that other Elf was warning Arondir that there had been only two pairings of Man and Elf and they both ended badly. Obviously one is Beren and Luthien, presumably. And the other (at the point in time this show is set) must be Tuor and Idril. I wouldn't say either of those ended badly/sadly even if some rough things happened along the way.

So what exactly do they have the rights to? I was surprised to see any First Age references at all (like the Trees). Or was that limited special dispensation they got just for the first episode? I wish they could have used or at least mentioned the Kinslaying rather than the “Galadriel hops off the boat” as the reason to keep her in Middle-earth. Overall I found it ok though somewhat draggy. I think I can do without the Harfoots. And yeah, I really need to turn off legendarium brain or else this show will drive me bonkers. Not sure what the point of searching for Sauron is since the Elves have no idea where he is until he forges the One. So Galadriel is never going to find him before then absent a major canon break.

Right idea, wrong band :). The original (i.e. comics) Dream's face and appearance were based on Bauhaus's Peter Murphy.

They definitely made it somewhat subtle. You had Fry saying "I found the use of force efficacious", Calliope saying "I didn't give it to him, he took it". And then when we go back to Madoc after that fade-to-black he's typing furiously away and we see a bloody scratch on his face. I wonder if I would have picked it up had I not read the comics.

The ending was probably the best and most logical thing about this season.