The fatal problem with The Rings of Power

Three episodes in I think I’ve worked out the thing that’s most annoying about The Rings of Power. It isn’t the gratuitously diverse casting. It isn’t the saccharine tweeness of the hobbity Harfoots. It isn’t the ‘You go girl!’ tediousness of the relentless female character heroics. It’s that the entire series appears to have been constructed with all the charm, flair, character, originality and artistry of an Ikea wardrobe.

Take the scene where Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and her fellow shipwreck victim Halbrand arrive – looking ludicrously healthy for a duo who till recently spent days clinging desperately to a raft of the Medusa – in the city state of Numenor. It is a spectacular place, shimmering with the kind of magnificence – massive statues, vaulting, fluting, towering, porticoed, white-stoned, etc – which only millions of dollars worth of computer wizardry can generate. But – inevitably – it’s not nearly as delightfully inviting as it first appears.