"The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power": Elves, Humans, and Proto-Hobbits Face Off against the Dark Lord

 I've read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and seen the movies, but I never paid much attention to the appendixes, the Silmarilion, the Book of Lost Tales, and the various other Middle Earth ephemera.  So I went in to the new Amazon series The Rings of Power, about the events of the First Age, with few fanboy expectations.  I watched the first 66 minute episode on Amazon Prime.

Scene 1:  I always thought that Undying Lands, where the Elves went when they tired of Middle Earth, was a sort of heaven, but here it's a regular place, lit by lamps instead of the sun, and the Elves aren't actually Undying -- they're  newly-created, so they just assume that they won't die.  And there are bullies -- all black-haired -- who gang up on the young Galadriel (blond) before her brother Finrod (Will Fletcher, above) intervenes.  They exchange aphorisms.

Scene 2: Galadriel narrates a whole trilogy worth of plots: the evil god Morgoth extinguishes the lamps, so the Elves have to leave the Undying Lands and go to war in Middle Earth.  He's defeated, but his henchman Sauron is still around, so the Elves spend hundreds of years patrolling, looking for him or his Orc-minions.

The narration ends with Galadriel and her troops (actually six people) still looking for clues to Sauron's whereabouts.  She pushes on and on, into the north country, until her troops, led by Thondir (Fabian McCallum), tire of her constant aphorisms and lay down their swords, stating that they are going home.

Scene 3:  The Harfoots, who will eventually evolve into Hobbits, are nomadic hunter-gathers that look and act like Irish Travelers.  A young girl named Nori is frustrated with her circumspect existence, and wants adventure (like a certain Bilbo Baggins centuries hence),

Scene 4:  When Galadriel finally makes it back to the Elf Middle Earth headquarters, her boyfriend Elrond (Robert Aramayo, left) tells her in aphorisms that the troops didn't mutiny: she did, by disobeying countless orders from the High King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) to give up the search.  But he forgives her.  He has declared that the danger is over, so all of the Elves can return to the Undying Lands.

Scene 5: Nori of the Harfoots, still being frustrated and longing for adventure.

Scene 6: Galadriel and boyfriend Elrond talking in aphorisms some more.

Scene 7:  The early Anglo-Saxon village of Men, a racial group that went gung-ho for Morgoth 70 years ago, and now is being closely monitored by their Elf overlords.  So, Hitler died about 70 years ago.  Should we be carefully monitoring the Germans?  They hate the Elves, and especially stoic Vulcan-like Arondir (Ismael Cruze Cordova), who is constantly snooping around, looking for problems. It doesn't help that he has a human girlfriend, a healer named Bronwyn-- interracial (or inter-species?)  relationships are strictly forbidden by both humans and Elves.  

Suddenly Arondir and his colleague Medhor (Augustus Prew, left) are called back to the base: High King Gil-Galad has called off the search and is sending them all home.  Good news, right?  Well...um...

Scene 8: Girlfriend Bronwyn and her teenage son Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) are preparing herbs.  Arondir drops by to tell her he's leaving, but first he'll go to the eastern town of Horndern to investigate some cattle being poisoned by evil grass.  She offers to go along, since she grew up there.

"Ok, but be careful -- the people of Horndern are all Morgoth-lovers."  Bigot!

Meanwhile, son Theo wants to show his friend Rowan (Ian Blackburn) a cache of treasure he found in an old barn.  Well, they're not really friends -- Rowan makes fun of him for having no father and a mother who's involved with an Elf.  The treasure includes a weird dagger marked with Dark Lord Sauron's symbol, which starts to glow and pull Theo to the Dark Side.

Scene 9: Galadriel and her group sing as their boat sails toward the Undying Lands, here pictured as a bright light.  Meanwhile, High King Gil-Galad and Elrond, back in Middle Earth, discuss in aphorisms that the evil might not have been vanquished after all.  The Harfoots agree -- "the sky looks strange."

Back on the ship, Galadriel remembers one of her dead brother's aphorisms and at the last minute refuses to go into the light.  She jumps off the ship -- and is left floating in the middle of the ocean.  I hope she knows how to teleport!

Scene 10: Everyone in Middle Earth watches as a a flashing light zooms across the sky.  A comet!  No, it can't be -- whatever it is crashes near the Harfoot camp.    Nori rushes to investigate and finds a flaming thicket, and in its midst a naked old guy.  I'm guessing Gandalf.  He's one of the istari, sent directly from God to help Middle Earth.  The end.

Beefcake: None.

Other Sights:  Lots of woodlands, some exteriors of Elvish castles.

Heterosexism:  Two boy-girl relationships are centered so far.

Gay Characters: None specified so far, and no same-sex pairings for gay subtexts.  I doubt that there will be any.  

My Grade: All  of the mysticism and magic of the Undying Lands has become banal, the Elves are portrayed as a bit totalitarian, and the gay subtexts that informed the original are gone.  C.

"Bureau of Magical Things": Dumb Title, Cute Teencom

 

Is it possible to have a school of magic after Hogwarts, or will any attempt inevitably be compared and criticized?  Let's find out with the Australian teencom with the rather clunky name The Bureau of Magical Things.

Scene 1: Brisbane, night.  A teenage girl goes on a late night run (all by herself?  in America she would be risking her life).  While running through Captain Burke Park on Kangaroo Point, she sees a book floating in the air.  Instead of getting the heck out of there, she approaches and touches it, and gets zapped into unconsciousness.

Scene 2:  Jogger awakens in her room with a nervous, flibbertigibit girl in a nightgown standing over her bed.  She explains that she found Jogger unconscious in the park and brought her home.  Then she sprouts wings and vanishes.  

Scene 3: 24 hours earlier, at River City High ("we got trouble, right here in River City").  .  Jogger -- Kyra -- playing basketball.  Her team loses.  Eyeglassed Peter (Jamie Carter, top photo) tries to cheer her up.  She responds by insulting him. Harsh!  

Meanwhile, downtown, Mr. Bulge...um, I mean Mr. Maxwell (Christopher Sommers)...closes his bookshop and walks through the wall to a magical library, where he orders a ladder to fetch him some books.  Then he catches a nonbinary person trying to steal a book.  He gives them the job of cleaning the library. 

Scene 4:  In the park, Eyeglassed Peter tries to give basketball advice to Kyra and her friend Mathilde.  They point out that he believes in UFOS, so his opinions are worthless. 

They stop for smoothies and look for a free table.  Androgynous Guy -- Darra (Julien Cullen. below) says he was just leaving, so they can have his.  He runs away and zaps to the magical library.

Nonbinary person asks why he missed dinner last night.  He went to a goblin party: "Those dudes sure love to dance!"  So Androgynous Guy has been dating goblins?  

Lily is still missing.  She went on a tooth run last night, so she's probably sleeping in.  So Underwear Girl is a tooth fairy.  She comes running in, and the class begins, with Mr. Bulge as the teacher.  They have a big test coming up.  

Scene 5:  Kyra in her room, playing the guitar and singing "What if you were the one for me?" while the camera pans to the photos on her wall, mostly of her hugging Mathilde.  Wait -- is Kyra gay? Also her parents and various trophies -- big overachiever here! 

Whoops, smoke alarm.  Dad burned dinner again!   Besides, it was a week old --  Kyra will have to heat up a frozen pizza instead. I get it -- Mom has died, and macho Dad is no good at feminine-coded things.  

Meanwhile, Lily the Tooth Fairy is at the magical library, practicing her conjuring, when Nonbinary Person -- Imogen (Elizabeth Cullen) -- sneaks in, steals the book, and zaps to Captain Burke Park in downtown Brisbane, just off the Story Bridge.  Lily follows.  They magically fight over the book, just as Kyra comes jogging by.  She can't see them, just the book hovering in mid-air.  So she approaches -- zap!

Scene 6:  The next morning.  Dad brings Kyra breakfast in bed (gee, I never got that, unless I was sick).  She's late for her Saturday dog-walking job.  

Cut to Kyra walking some dogs through Captain Burke Park.  Suddenly she sees Androgynous Guy from yesterday, and gapes, astonished -- he's got pointy ears.  He's astonished, too -- how can she see me?  -- and runs away.  She pauses at the spot where she saw the floating book, and finds scorch marks on the ground.  It wasn't a dream.

Suddenly she overhears the dogs talking to each other, mind-to-mind.  They are astonished -- how can a human hear our thoughts?

Eyeglassed Peter shows up.  She tells him about hearing the dogs.  He thinks that she is making fun of him, and leaves.  

Scene 7: At the magical library, Imogen returns the stolen book (lame explanation for the theft: she needed it to cheat on the upcoming test).  Lily the Tooth Fairy confronts her: because of your irresponsibility, a human girl saw us.  "That's impossible! Humans can't see us unless we want them to."  "Obviously we did something to her, and we have to fix it!"

Scene 8: Peter goes to the bookshop to deliver a pastry to Mr. Bulge.  It's payment for a comic book he ordered.  (Funny, most small businessmen want their payment in money.)

Cut to Imogen and Lily arguing, then fighting.  A magic beam blasts through to the bookstore, and Peter sees it!  Mr. Bulge makes a lame excuse, shoves him out the door, and confronts the students.  They cover.  

 

They are an elf and a fairy, respectively, and the two species generally don't get along. Elves are dark, brooding, and gender-atypical, while fairies are light, frothy, and girly.

 But they have to work together to erase Kyra's memory

Scene 9:  In her room, Kyra notices that she can levitate objects!  Lily the Tooth Fairy and Imogen appear and explain: There are magical beings all around us, keeping us safe (um...global warming, the COVD pandemic,  white nationalist extremism... they're doing a rather poor job of it!)  But humans can't know that they exist, so they're going to erase her memories.  They advance menacingly and zap her with fairy dust.

It doesn't work!  Kyra can still see them!  She absorbed some magic when she touched the book, and now she has powers of her own.  She accidentally zaps herself to a snowy mountaintop.  The end.

Beefcake:  Some of the guys are cute.  Mr. Bulge is very noticeable in one scene, but not in the others.

Other Sights: Lots of exteriors in Brisbane.

Heterosexism: No one expresses heterosexual interest, except maybe the double-taking between Kyra and Androgynous Guy Darra.

Gay Characters:  Kyra singing "Are you the one?" to Mathilde, and Hot Guy Darra dancing with goblin dudes?  I imagine that those are just coincidences, and the two will hook up.

Story Arcs: The book theft was far less intriguing than I anticipated.  There doesn't seem to be any ongoing mystery to solve, or at least none was introduced in the first episode.

Will I Keep Watching:  Just to see if Darra and Kyra hook up with each other.