The season of enormous epic fantasy shows is beginning to come to a close for 2022, and as the elves fade into the west, so too has the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power come and gone. The prequel series based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien marked Amazon Prime Video’s big swing to become a frontrunner in the fantasy wars. The show has gotten a mixed response; clearly, there are people watching it, though some seem to be doing it just to sound off about how awful it is on the Internet, while others have enjoyed it thoroughly.
Now that the season finale has aired and Sauron’s identity has been revealed, a question lingers: was The Rings of Power the success that Amazon hoped it would be? The first season of the show cost around a half billion dollars to produce, counting the price to acquire the rights from the Tolkien estate in in the first place. For reference, that’s almost double the cost of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was made for around $281 million total. Amazon has reportedly taken the approach that, to be considered a success, The Rings of Power basically has to be the biggest thing the studio has ever created.
So did Rings of Power live up to those hopes? The answer is a little more complicated than at first glance.
The Rings of Power plays the ratings game and plays it well
Let’s start with one of the easiest measure of success: how many people actually watched The Rings of Power? According to ratings tracker Nielsen, The Rings of Power has been doing pretty well: the latest spate of ratings clocked the show at 977 million minutes watched for the week of September 19-25, which is when its fifth episode, “Partings,” premiered. This is a bit of a drop from its premiere week, when people watch the first two episodes for a combined 1.253 billion minutes, marking only the second time an Amazon original series has broken into the #1 slot on the Nielsen charts (after Reacher back in February). It’s a very respectable number, and The Rings of Power has hit the Nielsen top 10 every week since the show’s premiere on September 2.
We can safely say that, during the time this first season was airing, The Rings of Power was one of the most-watched original series that Prime Video has produced. (Reacher still holds the top slot in that regard; its premiere was watched for a shocking 1.843 billion minutes during its first three days.) So The Rings of Power is big, but on the ratings front it is not “the biggest thing Amazon has ever done.”
We can also look at how The Rings of Power compares to its biggest rival, HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon. The two shows have been pretty much in lockstep where ratings are concerned; The Rings of Power has slightly led House of the Dragon in streaming numbers up until the week of September 19-25, when their placement on the charts reversed. However, Nielsen’s streaming charts don’t measure linear viewers who watch House of the Dragon on regular old TV, so we’re not getting the full picture. Still, I think it’s safe to say that the ratings have been close enough to compare.
All this is to say, The Rings of Power is a huge hit for Amazon on the ratings front. But it’s also not blowing the world apart. And Amazon execs have reportedly been “s***ing their pants” over how well House of the Dragon has been doing.
The Rings of Power had a bumpy road, but looked good walking it
We’ve talked a bit about the ratings for The Rings of Power, but let’s talk about the show itself. While there’s no doubt that the series has found an audience, it has also proved divisive among Tolkien fans. This was aways going to happen: adaptations of Tolkien’s work have long drawn a certain number of vitriolic hot takes. That started long before The Rings of Power and will continue afterwards.
But when we get into the actual production of the show, the conversation becomes a little more complex. The Rings of Power looks incredible on screen; there’s no denying that its production values are top notch. However, its plotting leaves something to be desired. One of the most common complaints is that it drew out plotlines, or struggled to keep its various storylines and characters coherent and compelling. There are mechanical issues with the actual telling of the tale that kept it from connecting with as broad an audience as it could have. It lacks a level of polish on the storytelling front that could have elevated it higher.
For a normal show, these issues might not feel so egregious, but when a series is a part of such a beloved IP as Tolkien’s Middle-earth, “middling” feels worse than it actually is.
These issues are reflected in the online buzz for the show. There isn’t a shortage of people talking about The Rings of Power; Parrot Analytics — a company which measures how much people are talking about shows on social media — reports that The Rings of Power was 30.6 times more in demand than the average show. But when you compare it to House of the Dragon, which is talked about at 54 times the average, we see a familiar picture forming: The Rings of Power is doing very well, but not quite crushing it.
As humble as a harfoot, as ambitious as Sauron himself
So what’s the verdict? Was The Rings of Power’s first season a massive hit or a dud? For my money, it’s neither.
The Rings of Power has performed exceptionally well for a Prime Video series so far. If it wasn’t the most expensive show ever made based on one of the most well-known IPs of all time, we could easily say it was a hit for the streamer and move on. But since it is those things, it’s difficult to say whether The Rings of Power has exceeded expectations or underperformed. It probably depends on who you ask, both among viewers and within Amazon itself.
Based on all the facts we discussed, like viewership and production quality and word of mouth, I’d say that The Rings of Power’s first season is a quiet hit, driving viewership to Amazon and generating enough discussion that it has safely cemented itself among the streamer’s top performers. It is absolutely going to stick around — Amazon has committed to this thing, and founder Jeff Bezos has made no secret of the fact that it’s a passion project for him. It’s gotten watched and discussed far more than the average Amazon series. So while season 1 may have had highs and lows, the show is carving out a solid niche for itself. That niche may be missing some of the hardcore Tolkien fans, or some of the people who have no idea what a Silmaril is or why they should care about it, but it clearly has a sizable audience.
The Rings of Power was Amazon Prime Video’s largest attempt yet to make a watercooler fantasy show. And thanks to the dumptruck loads of money that they put behind the production and marketing of the series, it’s the closest that the streamer has come yet to achieving that aim.
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h/t Indie Wire