The Lord of the Rings- The Rings of Power: Shadow and Flame

 "You are their prisoner, Sauron. Lord of the rings..."

I know, this is two blog posts in succession and both on the same show. But I wanted to get this season of The Rings of Power finished. And wow, what a dramativ finale. So much happens, and so much is set up. It's a wild ride.

We begin with the confrontation between the Durins, both father and son, as the King continues to mine, despite the risk of awakening what the subtitles reveal to be indeed the Balrog. His heroic death is nicely done- unexpected, shocking yet appropriate. Durin, I assume, is now king... but it seems his succession is not uncontested? The dwarvesare at last able to assist in the siege, but does civil war await them?

Equally dramatic is the confrontation between the Stranger and the Dark Wizard, who seemingly seeks not to join Sauron but to supplant him. Yet he responds to the Stranger's refusal to join him by destroying the Stoors' village, meaning that they, like the Harfoots, must wander. Yet there's a twist; Bombadil intended him to choose friendship, so he gets his staff after all... and his namre. This, again, is very nicely done. No wonder Gandalf is so fond of Hobbits.

At Numenor things get even worse. Pharazon declares all followers of the Valarto be traitors, and we end the episode with poor, blind Mirielin chains. Yet she orders Elendil to leave, and "reclaim your lordship". Isildur, meanwhile, and the displaced southlanders, also learn of the new regime and its harshness. Yet I sense Numenor, at this point, is irreversibly bound to sink between the waves. Isildur's future lies in Gondor... ad, I'm sure, with Estrid, taken though she is.

Celebrimbor's death, tortured tro death by Sauron, is indeed grimly horrible. He may have been at fault, an eager dupe, but he didn't deserve this. Charles Edwards, though, is again extraordinary.

Adar's death, a horrible twist, also shocks- betrayed by his own Uruks who turn instead to Sauron. He is, perhaps, as tragic an eff as Celebrimbor, noble in his way,and on the cusp of allying with Galadiel.

His flaw was love. He loved ad cared for his orc... and yet they spurned their loving father for an evil master, because evil is what they are. That, to put it mildly, is dark.

Galadriel's combt with Sauron is epic, although perhaps it goes on too long. We end with her barely alive... and, I trust, confined to Lothlorien if she wishes to live?

An extraordiunary episode. And, after a mixed first season... this season has been extraordinary.

The Lord of the Rings- The Rings of Power: Eldest

 "Harfoots, living in holes! It doesn't feel natural."

This seasoin has already kicked up a gear... but now this. We have Tom Bombadil, and he;s Rory Kinnear! Barrow Wights, which look amazing! ENTS!!!

But mostly we focus on a party of elves which foreshadow the Fellowship: we also have a Caradhras moment. And we end with Galadriel, foreshadowing Boromir, using herself as bait so Elrond and the others can escape from the orcs and warn Gil-Galad that Adar's orcs are coming.

Except... that means their mission to Celebrimbor is delayed, leaving plenty of time for the forging of rings...

And then we have the Stranger finding Bombadid, about whom we learn a few things- he is the "eldest", older that the stars, yet he can only offer wisdom, not act. The Stranger is rapt with respect for him, realising his own purpose: to defeat both Sauron and this Dark Wizard, who could simply never be allowed to join forces.

And then we have Nori and Poppy who discover more halflings, the Stoor. And they discover tragedy: the Harfoots once split from the Stoors looking for some non-existent Eden... and are wandering still. Ouch! One day, I hope they find their Shire. All this is beautiful, fairy tale stuff.

But then we have Isildur, Estrid and Arondir. Isildur and Estrid draw closer... until Arondir discovers the truth: despite their real attraction, she is one of the Wild Men. We have a brilliant moment with a CGI swamp monster... but the drama is palpable. We share Isildur's disappointment when she finds her betrothed.

And yet... ENTS!!!

This season gets better and better

The Lord of the Rings- The Rings of Power: The Eagle and the Sceptre

 "You're not my father..."

More good stuff here as Sauron's dark persuasive powers continue to bear rotting fruit. He convinces Celebrimbor to lie to Gil-Galad about the rings, but convincingly, playing on Celebrimbor's artistic pride like a lute, or whatever stringed instrument elves prefer to use. And the rings are the reason Durin finally makes himself apologise to his father. We end with the five Dwarven rings about to be forged- no doubt to save Khazad-Dum from the volcano. Yet at what cost?

We also return to Isildur. His adventures are many, not least with a convincingly horrible Shelob-like arachnid. Yet he meets a girl and connects with her- future wife, from whom Aragorn will, surely, be descended?

He also meets Arondir, who struggles to connect with the orphaned young Theo... unlike Isildure, who also lost hs mother at a young age. And the circumstances of how this happened tell us much about his drive to greatness. All of this is very good writing.

Yet the true drama is in Numenor, where we return for the first time this season. All episode we hear rumours about the unpopular, blind, Queen Regent, only for uproar and revelations to derail the coronation... and for the traditional eagle (why does it not speak?) to choose Pharazon instead. 

As with every episode this season so far, this is exciting, dramatic writing, and it's about a series of character who are all flawed in their own way. Compared to the first season, a lot seems to be happening, amd fast...

The Lord of the Rings- The Rings of Power: Udun

 "New life... in defiance of death!"

Wow.This is when Rings of Power really comes alive. I may not be a huge fan of battle scenes, but this is a proper, awesome, cinematic, Lord of the Rings battle scene. And I love it.

The men of the Southlands fight well, with Bronwyn and Arondir being real heroes. The tactics, and the ebb and flow of battle, work well narratively. It's hard to do this, yet the episode does it with aplomb. And verve. And CGI,

Yet the characterisation is superb, too. Isildur getting to fight as a soldier, and imprressing Elendil. The nobility of Bronwyn. Her romance with Arondir, Leo's attachment to the artifact- like Smeagol. The arresting interrogation of Adar by the deeply charismatic and awesome Galadriel- we learn that orcs were once elves, and that he claimed to kill Sauron. 

And then there's Halbrand... I don't think he's a king at all. We shall see. Yet he and Galadriel seem to find love in battle. Like Spartans without the gayness...

The conclusion is shocking, if CGI heavy. We know Galadriel, Elendil and Isildur must survive the eruption. But the others?

The Lord of the Rings- The Rings of Power: Partings

 "We set sail!"

This episode, and a fine episode it is- the start has been uneven, but there was much to establish. Thois iscan episode, a pivotal episode, one in which the forces of hope start to amass against the orcs, Adar, Sauron... and it's all about loyalty. Loyalty as a test.

The Stranger- now very clearly a proto-wizard, ahem!- proves his loyalty to the poroto-Hobbits by scaring away the Wargs. Others have it less easy. Elrond is torn between the honour of his oath to Durin and his Elven loyalty because mithril, apparently, is the ghost of a Silmaril (I know what they are!) and is needed to save the Eldar... yes, it's a word coined by Tolkien. but it makes me think of Space Marines and such. Bah.

The Men of the Southlands have conflicting loyalties. half of them, led by Waldreg, are bloody traitors. Arondir, bless him, is true, and will fight for the humans even if they will not fight for themselves. Bronwyn, heartbreakingly, is torn.

On the doomed Numenor, the queen shows admirable steel. Thev loyalty of Galadriel is not in doubt, though her fanaticism fascinates. The loyalty of the political class is not without cynicism, but true.Idildur, though... we know his name, and that of his fathervElendil, as the first two kings of Gondor, meaning Numenor must be doomed in the very short term. Yet he is portrayed, with all due melodrama, as a ne'er-do-well made good.

I have no problem with that. t describes myself. This episode oozes character, restrained wit and narrative skill.

The Lord of the Rings- The Rings of Power: The Great Wave

 "You have been told many lies..."

Halfway through the season, already, and things are getting ominous. I liked this episode a lot. 

Evil tidings aboung everywhere. Arandir is freed by Adar- an elf who seems to command the orcs- to deliver an ultimatum to the humans in the elf tower- surrender the Southlands to him or be crushed. Young Theo, fresh from nearly getting heroically killed, is told by a fellow villager, a sinister individual, that the falling stars some nightsago mean Sauron is coming.

Meanwhile, Elrond learns the dwarves are tentatively mining a new mineral- mithril, previously unknown. Yet the efforts almost end in disaster, and I sense that Durin's royal father will not live long. And the Dwarves know that Elrond is hiding something. It's all very friendly, but everyone is hiding something.

Most fascinating are the events in Numenor, as Galadriel hears the reason for all the suspicion; the royals have a seeing stone, one foretelling the fooding end destruction of Numenor. Isildur disgraces himself at sea. And yet... we know that "Elendil" was a battle cry for Aragorn, his distant descendent. And Isildur will achieve legendary things... I think he was called the first king of Gondor? But Gondor is on Middle Earth. I suspect Numenor is doomed, and soon. All these revelations are thrilling. The series has build up slowly, at times, but this episode really delivers the goods.

And, unexpectedly, Numenor goes to war with Galadriel, the Queen and Isildur among the troops. I'm excited.

The Lord of the Rings- The Rings of Power: Adar

 "The sea is always right..."

Wow. This episode has blown it all wide open. We are suddenly immersed in charactewrs we know from The Lord of the Rings, both the novel(s) and the films. Last episode we had Gil-Galad. Now we find ourselves in Numenor, a name I recognise, a Western island kingdom. Yet Galadriel and Halbrand are introduced to Elendil, the captain of the ship, and his son is a cadet... Isildur. We know these names. My memory is shaky, but will not Aragorn cry into battle crying "Elendil"? Will not Isildur found the Kingdom of Gondor? This is epic stuff. I mean, yes, I read the appendices to Tolkien's masterwork. But that was in another century.

We have conflict. The people of Numenor fought amongst the elves but now hate them. Why? The king was deposed for suppoireting them. Oh, and we have the bombshell that Halbrand is the exiled king of the Southlands... and that Sauron is building a base there. Is this a proto-Mordor?

We have brutal enslavement of elves, including Arandir, by orcs who are certainly shown to be evil, but not stupid. Arandir proves himself to be pretty awesome...but has to face "Adar". Sauron?

Speaking of Sauron, I thought the stranger who appeared to the Hsrfoots was him. I'm now fairly sure he isn't, and another theory is correct. I Shall be discreet, though...

This episode is MUCH better. I'm very pleased.

Years and Years: Episode 6

"This is the world we built."

Although we start the episode as one might expect- Vivienne Rook is PM, and she does a lot of Trumpy things like shutting down the BBC for being "enemies of the people" and denying Russian involvement in her election.And there's a lot of dystopian detail as per earlier episodes-
bacterial food that was never alive, working class estates being arbitrarily locked in, food banks closing- and Muriel's wonderful voice-of-the-author speech about how things have gone wrong since the millennium but how we're all to blame through wanting cheap stuff without considering the consequences. And there's a lot of horrifying stuff with Viktor and others in concentration cams which look very, very much like, well, you know.

But this is RTD. Things don't carry on through the same dystopian path. There is hope. Yes, it's undercut at the end by the point that the regime was opposed and falling anyway, but we see the Lyons family essentially toppling the government. And I now thing Edith is even cooler and Jessica Hynes deserves a BAFTA. But the point is that the very ordinary family we've been seeing turn out to be heroes- even Rosie and little Lincoln do heir bit against tyranny. Even Stephen goes some way to redeeming himself, much as though it looked for one horrifying moment that he was going to shoot Celeste.

Yet it's not just about the defiant note of hope, the insistence that yes, humans can be right bastards, but we have the potential to redeem ourselves. No; we have a fascinating final ten minutes of poetry as Edith, who I think represents someone the author would like to be, waits to die, and to have her memories and perhaps her consciousness (or just a copy?) uploaded online, perhaps to be immortal. There's a lot of philosophy about consciousness to unpick here, and I'd observe that, in all the futurology that RTD has given us, he's deliberately seemed to avoid the subject of the Singularity, of artificial intelligence becoming sentient. Is this the bit where he addresses such themes head on, being deliberately ambiguous? Is the "I am love" a statement on all this or just the endorphins of a dying woman? I don't know, but these six episode have been first rank telly.

Years and Years: Episode 5

"I’ll just topple the government. How about that?”

It’s 2028. Vivienne Rook is PM and initially little has changed- indeed, Rook’s public statements are just vacuous and meaningless platitudes. But the first thing we see is a critic being suddenly arrested on what looks like trumped up charges, mentioning the “disappeared”. Shades of Pinochet already.

Chez the Lyons there’s a struggle to recover from Daniel’s death, with Stephen visiting Viktor to tell him personally that he blames and will not forgive him. And it’s an even bleaker world- bananas are gone. Global heating means endless rain. Energy crises and co start blackouts mean much of what exists online is erased forever, and there’s an amusing scene of schoolchildren having to get used to this quaint little thing called paper. And then things get truly dystopian with dirty bombs causing radioactive fallouts in two major cities while floods erode the coast. There are floods of homeless refugees, both British and international. And this is less than a decade away.

There are positives; Muriel’s macular degeneration can be cured just like that, albeit at the cost of her family’s inheritance. But this is s world where civil liberties are despised, where “criminal” estates are walled off and where Rosie’s business is closed down because of where she lives. Each episode is getting more dystopian than the last, and scarily plausible in a world that contains such scum as Nigel Farage, Katie Hopkins and Donald Trump. I think RTD underestimates the liberal backlash but, this being part polemic, creatively that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

There’s a human side too; an increasingly bitter Stephen lives with a woman he doesn’t particularly like. Edith is increasingly cool and easily my favourite character, but she’s dying. Bethany’s joy at becoming a bionic woman is wonderful- but, as Stephen points out, she has become state property. And Celeste is increasingly bitter at having to be nursemaid to her mother in law. These are very real people, anchoring us to this world.

The shocking conclusion, of course, has Stephen humiliate himself to get a better job with an absolute wanker he went to school with, and briefly meeting Vivienne Rook, who casually mentions that is she ever resigned as PM, “they’d kill me.” And the contract they’re bidding on is one for concentration camps for refugees and other desirables, where Rook plans to solve the overcrowding problems by “letting nature take its course”. Because this is inevitably where far right populism leads.

The human dimension adds extra horror, too, as Stephen deliberately moves Viktor to the extermination camp. And Bethany knows...

This is utterly sublime.

Years and Years: Episode 4

"Turns out we were born in a pause..."

This is a bloody brilliant piece of telly. There’s so much going on, obviously- not least the fact we finally see Vivienne Rook attaining power, the consequences of which we are no doubt about to see. But the plot is about two things. Firstly, Celeste gives Stephen his comeuppance for his affair by humiliatingly outing him in front of the whole family, which crushes him- Gran’s reaction is devastating enough, but Bethany's Parting question is “What colour is she?” and, on being told she’s while, simply “bye”. Ouch. And, in a masterfully scripted couple of scenes, it’s clear that his lover is beginning to tire of him anyway, and unhappy being stuck with him.

We also see Rosie starting a new business and getting a rather annoying new boyfriend, and start to see just how far Edith would go to protect her family. There’s a lot of love here.

But most of the episode focuses on the incredibly tense and dramatic attempt by Daniel to get Viktor over to the UK rather than facing possible disappearance or even execution in the Ukraine. This gets a lot of screen time, but ends with the incredibly dangerous sight of dozens of people being crammed into a dinghy and pushed across the channel. The screen goes black and we see just a couple of horrifying flashes, and then we’re on a beach on the south coast of England with emergency services everywhere. Daniel is dead and we end with Viktor in their house alone, alive but empty.

RTD’s brilliance at writing character and drama is very much on display here, but it’s also a scarily plausible version of a near future of 3-D printed villages and burgers without beef, of deepfake videos, of Grexit, turmoil in Italy and a bankrupt Hungary, as America bans equal marriage and overthrows Roe vs Wade. This reveals itself to be better and better every week. So I’d better catch up quick...

Years and Years: Episode 3

"The gig economy, that's me."

Things slow down a bit in the third episode as the characters get a chance to breathe and respond from the huge events that ended both the first two episodes. But there’s a very definite sense that civilisation is declining as the 2026 election day looms.

There’s humanity, though, which stops things getting too depressing- RTD is a master at using time like this. Yes, Daniel and Viktor are separated, Viktor is in huge danger from bigoted wankers, and it’s all quite heartbreaking. But their love and devotion for each other is touching, and it’s wonderful to see Viktor make it to Spain, where the internment camps have conjugal arrangements.

But this is a moment of hope in the context of rising bigotry. We also see the hollowing of the muffle class as Steve and Celeste are forced to stay with Gran and replace their nice professional jobs with gig economy drudgery with appalling conditions. Meanwhile, Bethany and her fellow transhuman Lizzie are exploited into handing over £10,000 for a horrifying botched operation to replace their eyes with cameras- fortunately Beth escapes. There’s artificial meat, all cars seem to be electric, but society isn’t heading in a pleasant direction.

Yes the deaths of the siblings’ father allows them to bond at his funeral in another moment of humanity. Never mind that Rosie has lost her job, Steve is forced to take what work he has, Edith is dying and Daniel’s partner is in a cell. They have each other, even if Edith (easily my favourite character), er, drinks her father.

Seems with Celeste, proud and stoic to the last, discovers that Steve has been having an affair, and the election results are revealed- Tories and Labour finely balanced with the odious Vivienne Rook holding the balance of power. Simple and narratively necessary, I suppose, but where are my beloved Lib Dem’s? And what about the Norn MP’s? Whatever, the march of dodgy populism proceeds onwards. More superb telly although, after a superlative second episode, this is merely great rather than superlative.

Years and Years: Episode 2

"This is a different country to the one I left..."

First episodes of new dramas are always, to an extent, set up, introducing us not only to the premise and the setting but also to the cast. It’s the sign of a great writer that, after seeing the first episode once, I started this second episode with a firm grasp of who was who, and feel that I know all the characters. And that’s important; a high concept, somewhat dystopian tour through the near future would be very dry without real humanity and character. Fortunately RTD has never been faulted with either of those.

So we really feel for Stephen and Celeste in the final scenes as a bank collapse robs them of the money paid for their house, and they become homeless and forced into an awkward dependence on Gran. The bank run scenes are a masterful marriage of writing and direction, with the policeman keeping order joining in at the end, a nice touch. And yet the world isn’t unremittingly awful in spite of everything as there is still booze, love and laughter, even in a world with s President Pence and where Putin is dictator for life. Yet the horrors are real; the immigration nightmare for Daniel and Victor, happy in their life until Daniel’s wanker of an ex has Viktor ruthlessly reported to a place where he is far from safe. It’s about time that serious TV drama showed us the barbarism of May’s “hostile environment”.

Edith is back, and back properly, with her characterisation quite a clever piece of writing. She’s had a huge dose of radiation, and probably has ten years before the cancer gets her, leading her to say “sod this” to a life of activism and just enjoy herself. As she says, it’s too late to sort the climate crisis and the mass extinctions; we must now deal with the consequences and they are brutal. So carpe diem. Not only that; she reacts to a creepy hustings with Vivienne Rook with “smash the world!” She seems not to care any more. Oh, there are flashes, as when she says “don’t do that” as Rook appropriates a superficial feminism for her own ends, but this is a terrifying cynicism.

Ah yes, the extraordinary Emma Thompson as Rook, propeller I to a by-election by a very RTD incident where the sitting MP gets decapacitated by a drone which is robotising Manchester’s workforce. Eat your heart out, William Huskisson. Her speech is utterly terrifying, as is her ignorance.

This episode has gone up a notch. This is more than “very good”.

Years and Years: Episode 1

"Don't know if I could have a kid in a world like this."

RTD is back, after last year's superb A Very English Scandal, with the start of a new six-part drama which seems to have the critics wowed but is, well, very good (this is RTD) but not quite up there with The Second Coming.

We have four Lyons siblings- Rosie, Daniel, Stephen and the globe-trotting polemicist Edith, all glued together by their irascible, politically incorrect gran, and it is through them that we are to experience the next few decades, beginning here and now in 2019- so contemporary that a cleverly last mo ute piece of dialogue references the death of Doris Day. All of these characters immediately come to life as RTD gives them very real and very relatable dialogue, as always. Yet the constant backdrop of ominous news, and the little soliloquy of Daniel (the author’s representative?) makes it clear that this is a world where the future looks anything but bright- and yes, he’s not the only one who feels that something has been very wrong ever since the banks buggered things up in 2008. And through all this we see the slow rise of the blunt populist politician Vivienne Rook, played superbly by the great Emma Thompson.

We then go through the next six or seven years, through Trump’s re-election, through a new king, through nuclear tensions between China and the USA, and through a refugee crisis caused by an, er, Soviet (what???!!) invasion of Ukraine. We also see such things as Snapchat filters moving to the real world and Stephen’s daughter coming out as “trans”- by which she means “transhuman”; she wants to go to a Swiss clinic, destroy her flesh and upload herself to live forever as data. Wow. This would, of course, be literal death; the data uploaded would just be a copy. You would be gone. But I’m sure there will be those who think this way and it’s a clever thing to include. And this helps us get to know bewildered father Stephen and his very middle class wife Celeste.

We also see the gradual collapse of Daniel’s marriage to his stupid husband Ralph, who embraces silly internet conspiracy theories and decries those who won’t consider that the Flat Earthers, 9/11 triggers or Moon landing deniers “could be right” as closed minded. This kind of stupidity is, it can’t be denied, the main bad thing about the internet. And these people vote, usually for populist bullshit. This sort of thing isn’t harmless. We also see some staggering ignorance about Ukrainian refugees- “I voted Leave.” Grr.

And then there comes a siren, nuclear war between China and the USA, chaos, family recriminations and Edith dying in Vietnam with a big mushroom cloud. And fade to black. This is very good stuff indeed, it’s just that RTD can do much better than “very good”.