As far as I can make out, the Tolkien Rings of Power series is being very widely derided and has very few viewers expressing enthusiasm for it on social media. (I noticed some left leaning some pushback on the "it's Tolkien gone woke" rubbishing - which, to be honest, what most criticism is about - but I don't think the defenders have found much to be enthusiastic about as it has progressed.)
The Game of Thrones prequel seems to be pulling big numbers, but while I could be wrong, it still seems to be lacking the audience enthusiasm that the original series had. Apparently, it jumps ahead suddenly by 10 years, involving recasting some key characters - a rather "brave" move. I see on Metacritic the audience rankings are unusually equally split between positive and negative.
This, for a person who does not rate fantasy as a genre at all highly, is a Good Thing. Apart from The Witcher, I'm not sure that there is any other recent fantasy series viewed as a success. (I don't care for it at all, either.) I guess the audience numbers staying high might mean something for more Game of Thrones content, but didn't the audience stay with it even during the terrible last season? I mean, audience enthusiasm has to count for something...
The lesson I hope studios take from this is "stop making fantasy series - they're expensive and risky."
I just watched the first season of Game Of Thrones last weekend. Fantastic. Its like that horse drawing you showed us before. The first three seasons are probably the best television ever. Just abandon it after that if you don't want to feel the disappointment. Deadwood never let us down. But the first three seasons of Game Of Thrones is even better than Deadwood.
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