Is it though?

Yeah that's gonna be a no from me dawg

Nah there was a lot of corny dialogue across the board, not just from Galadriel.

"I'm good!", "The sea is always right", "Do you know why a ship floats?", etc...

Meh. Diversity was the least of RoP's problems. Poor writing, corny dialogue, and awful pacing however...

Television subreddit discusses TV show... Who woulda thought.

>He literally goes from asking if he’s bad to declaring he’s good.

This happens in the course of like 10 minutes screentime. In previous episodes he hadn't even been able to speak. It was very clumisly done.

Also him being Gandalf was another example of how extremely lazy the writing is. They have practically a blank canvas with the Blue Wizards, but instead they go for the easy nostalgia points and a weak attempt to give Gandalf an MCU-esque origin story. It's like the show itself doesn't even have confidence in its own writing.

You can like the show all you want. I'm just pointing out that it has some serious flaws, and leaning too heavily on mystery over plot and character development is probably the number one problem imo.

The stranger being able to talk and literally saying "I'm good" is not character development. It's just finding out who he is and a pretty terrible line of dialogue as well.

The show absolutely did put mysteries before plot. The clunky pacing proves it. There were two full episodes spent on the Numenoreans debating whether or not to sail to ME and then the forging of the rings happens in 10 minutes. I don't understand how you can argue in good faith that they didn't structure this show around the big reveal.

Well I disagree with pretty much everything you just said. The Stranger suddenly going from not being able to speak to talking in metaphors and literally saying "I'm good" is hardly character development.

Not every show uses mystery in lieu of plot and character development in the way that rings a power does though. Look at the Harfoot/Strangers story for example - 8 episodes went by with basically nothing happening in terms of plot or character development in that story. And it was all so they could have a big reveal at the end for some nostalgia points.

The rest of the show was structured around the Sauron reveal, and it was a lot worse for it. It's just a cheap way to write a show in my opinion.

Mystery boxes don't imply that they are never opened. It just means that the writers use mysteries to drive the story. This is exactly what rings of power did.

Instead of telling a story with the stranger, they strung the viewers along for 8 episodes to wonder about his identity and purpose. Instead of telling the story of Sauron manipulating the elves into making the rings, they tried to set up this big reveal moment about his identity. And then they rushed through the forging of the rings sloppily in about 15 minutes.

At pretty much every turn they chose to go with mystery rather than storytelling.

I've only watched the first 6 so far but I'd rank them:

1. The Autopsy
2. The Outside
3. Graveyard Rats
4. Lot 36
5. Pickman's Model
6. Dreams in the Witch House

No surprise that The Autopsy seems to be the unanimous favorite. Imo it has the best pacing, acting, and the most satisfying ending.

The Outside seems to be a polarizing episode, but I liked how strange it was and I thought the acting in it was also better than the rest.

Graveyard Rats had an awesome vibe and a good ending as well. It was the funniest of them all too with the slapstick humor.

Lot 36 was kind of meh to me. The idea was cool, but the execution left a bit to be desired.

I found Pickman's Model kind of boring to be honest and the monster reveal was poorly done and corny to me. The horrible accents took me out of it as well.

Dreams in the Witch House was the weakest so far imo. Just kinda cheesy.

Overall I've been enjoying it though. Even the weaker episodes. Glad to have something new to watch with cool spooky horror vibes so close to Halloween.