Quarantine Control #135: The Rings of Tigers

DC Staff | November 3, 2022 | Features, Television | No Comments

This is another week where COVID-19 is on the backburner in terms of the public’s consciousness, for understandable reasons despite the inevitably bad surge of cases set to happen during the winter season. There are critical elections happening around the world at the moment, a few of which have gone well, though others have gone badly. The midterms in the United States are shaping up to be the latter, so hopefully everyone reading this has a plan to vote for people who aren’t open pro-violence fascists. This isn’t a positive way to start this post, but that’s just how things are.

Geoffrey Barnes

Sure, everything sucks. It’s been a great fall season for prestige TV, and I watched one of them for this week.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — Season 1 (2022)
Source: Amazon Prime Video
Episodes: 8

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power had it rough from the start. Even people who weren’t following the show knew about the racism that surrounded its marketing campaign, thanks to this series featuring a considerably higher number of people of color compared to previous Lord of the Rings adaptations — especially Peter Jackson’s films. This also coded my early perception of the series, as someone who isn’t a shitheel and thinks there’s no problem with diversity in a fantasy world that very obviously isn’t based on history. This inflated my expectations for the quality I hoped it would reach, to fully overcome the nonsense criticism it received. The series, at least, gives it an earnest shot.

Rings of Power happens several centuries before the LotR and The Hobbit films that take place in Middle-earth’s Third Age, for a tale that occurs in the world’s Second Age. But it still involves familiar characters. A younger Galadriel (Morfydd Clark — taking over for Cate Blanchett) in an Elven warrior form works, largely from a distance, with a younger Elrond (Robert Aramayo — taking over for Hugo Weaving) to discover the source of the foretold evil that will return to Middle-earth. It covers author J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories about the creation of the Rings of Power, the return of Sauron, and the fall of the beautiful island kingdom of Númenor. Those aren’t spoilers because they’re clearly spelled out early in the series, not to mention that one of them is in the title.

The story goes through multiple scenarios in a simultaneous manner, with characters preparing to deal with the impending calamities that most of them believe is actually coming. It’s easy enough to keep up with, but despite the series taking years before the aforementioned movies, it requires more knowledge of the world of Middle-earth than expected. The drama between the established characters, including the Harfoots like Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) who happen upon and befriend a mysterious amnesiac figure and Silvan Elven archer Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and his battles with the Orcs, stands on its own, but a bit of background info might be necessary.

The series is a sight to behold the entire time — not that there was every any chance it wouldn’t be. Amazon spent an exorbitant amount of money on this series, thanks to obscenely rich CEO Jeff Bezos’ obsession with creating a fantasy series that could compete with, if not best, Game of Thrones. It’s the best-looking show on TV, and every episode puts out blockbuster movie-quality visuals in the environmental design, CG-usage, and costume design. The visuals were one of the top reasons why I continued to tune in every week.

Throwing money at a show is no way to create a quality one, though. Anyone who dismissed Rings of Power as “trash” from the get-go isn’t worth listening to, especially if they tossed in “woke” somewhere in their criticisms as a signal that they have nothing worthwhile to contribute. The series indeed suffers from messy character development and pacing. The only characters whose plights were well developed were Elrond, Durin IV (Owain Arthur), and Disa (Sophia Nomvete), all of whom have fantastic chemistry with one another as they discuss ways to prepare for the incoming calamities. Galadriel only starts to receive significant development during the finale’s end.

It was also a very brave and gutsy decision on the writers’ parts to have five episodes, more than half the first season, focus on build-up the events to come, only to start delivering when three episodes remained. This is the work of a writing team that knew the show would have five guaranteed seasons, but I wish more happened in the first season considering how long the wait for the next one will be.

Rings of Power is… alright. It’s fine. It doesn’t live up to the legacy LotR has established, for as much as I wanted it to. But it’s hardly a bad show, and there’s much potential for the second season to be a significant improvement given the teases and story moments near the first season’s end. There’s no indication that Amazon/Bezos will rein in their expectation to take on GoT and create the one fantasy franchise to rule them all, so it’s my sincere hope that the writers will deliver style and substance next time around.

Joseph Daniels

As I write this, it’s been snowing pretty steadily here. Winter weather has arrived for me in this Year of the Tiger.

One of the niftiest things about tigers is that you’ll find them in all sorts of climates. Tigers have been able to adapt to live in hot tropical jungles and cold arctic tundras. Fortunately, a tiger knows how to take care of himself. He’ll grow a thicker fur coat for colder climates and will shed that fur when it’s warmer. Imagine your housecat’s shedding. Now imagine it on the scale of a large jungle cat.

When it gets colder, we definitely need to keep taking care of ourselves. Just because we don’t have to worry about hydrating to keep from baking in the heat doesn’t mean we should stop. We also should make sure those around us are warm and safe and secure, too, once our own needs are met. Self care should always come first, and when that’s met, others’ care can follow.

Do you want to know one of my favourite things about snow? Assuming you’re not the one who has to shovel it, anyway, the best thing about it is that if you want a nice, peaceful evening, you can just sit by the window and watch it fall from the sky while sipping on a warm beverage. So as autumn gradually turns to winter for everyone in the northern hemisphere, I wish everyone warmth and safety this month.

There’s nothing more to say here other than to suggest that everyone reading this in the doomed country of the USA vote for people who aren’t fascists next week, if you haven’t already. Though given recent trends, we may be in for a world of hurt — literally.

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