Apparently season one lost 65% of it's viewers from the first double episode to the last. And apparently season two had roughly half those figures.

I do wonder, when this comes out in 18+ months time, if there will be enough people left to hide Amazon's $2bn embarrassment.

Typically shows like to build on viewers, as word of mouth spreads, - not lose viewers as more and more people switch off.

Say the quiet bit out loud. "This would align somewhat with J.R.R. Tolkien's original works, making it the perfect path for the series."

From conception the show runners were running under a naïve fallacy. They thought they required mystery to 'get the audience hooked'. There shouldn't be any mystery. There's a very clear outline to follow. They can freely invent the dialogue and the scenes, but Not the sequence of events. They can tell us 'How' Isildur escaped with the seeds of the white tree, or 'How' Sauron manipulated of his surrender, - that's their responsibility, - but not to completely alter/omit the driving events.

If they were adapting Romeo and Juliet, they wouldn't be teasing "will the couple end up together", or "will the families resolve their differences before it's too late?!" - it would be facile. We know the story, and like it as it was. A sensible and sincere audience would reject them.

Like many people, I was eagerly awaiting the show from when it was announced in 2017. I followed the twitter feed for updates, and clicked go on morning one.

But the writers had a different idea. They could tell the story "better".

There's an abundance of material to feed their adaptation, any reference in all the LotR book to this period could be used, from Elrond's thorough description at the council, to Gandalf's breakdown to Frodo, to the complete timeline in the appendices.

But the writers thought they could do it better.

I still wish that someday we could see the real legendarium on screen. Maybe someday we will.

Obviously the show runners will say anything in their self-delusion.

"Considering the history of middle earth it's also highly improbable, or even impossible," for Galadriel to be press-ganged into returning to Valinor, only to decide to swim the Atlantic ocean, only to meet sauron on a raft, which is then found by Elendil...

Didn't stop them writing it and high-fiving eachother.

Can't wait for the Amazon production of Moby Dick next year, where the ship hunts for tuna instead of whales and actually it's in the Caribbean, and actually it's about the politics of the age, and actually Ahab is super chill and a hero who loves his men, and actually the Titular Character is a wealthy plantation owner, and not a whale at all, and actually it's a race against time to earn some money and get back home before Mr Dick marries Ahab's sweetheart.

Such bold retelling would pair well with their 'interpretation' of Tolkien.