The Rings Of Power Should Not Be Renewed After Five Seasons

thegamer.com:

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is coming. Fans went for years without hearing so much as a pip from the series, but Amazon Studios has recently started promoting it in earnest, three months ahead of its September release date. Fans pored over every detail of the action-packed reveal trailer, made some wild assumptions based on character portraits, and tried to tease information out of Tolkien scholars who got a sneak peek. A recent interview with the series’ producers in Empire magazine has given us a whole lot more to go on, and one tidbit in particular has given me much to ponder.

“We even know what our final shot of the last episode is going to be,” showrunner JD Payne tells Empire. “The rights that Amazon bought were for a 50-hour show. They knew from the beginning that was the size of the canvas – this was a big story with a clear beginning, middle and end. There are things in the first season that don’t pay off until Season 5.”

Related: Lord Of The Rings: Gollum Devs Explain Its “Creepy” Elves And Melian’s Role

There’s a lot of details to unpack here. First, there’s solid information about the rights that Amazon bought. It’s only got 50 hours of Tolkien to work with. And the showrunners have come up with a way of splitting this into five seasons. It’ll probably be an even ten hours per season, but we don’t know that yet for sure. Blockbuster openings have been rumoured, and split final seasons are popular with shows like Stranger Things and Better Call Saul these days.

However, it’s the details that excite me most. Payne knows what the last shot will be. And the story he and the team are telling has “a clear beginning, middle, and end.” These seem like trivial things, and they are the basics of