The Rings of Power Season 3 Is the Best According to Viewers, With a Caveat

The third season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has a higher audience score than either previous season, though it is too early to draw firm conclusions.

The season has a 74% audience approval score on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside 79% positive reviews from critics. The first season received 38% audience approval and the second received 58%. The new season also leads on Metacritic, but with a much more modest score of 4.9 out of 10, compared with 3.0 for the first season and 4.1 for the second.

Those comparisons come with caveats. The new episodes have only a few dozen ratings, while the previous seasons have hundreds, and the first has thousands. Only four of the eight episodes have been released, so users are rating the first half rather than the full season. The show’s ratings have also long been contentious: The Rings of Power has regularly faced review bombing, and the third season has already received both zeroes and tens on Metacritic.

Третий сезон «Колец власти» стал лучшим по мнению зрителей, но есть нюанс — Image source: Rotten Tomatoes

Viewers who enjoyed the early episodes praise the sets, darker tone, and hints at familiar events from the books. Even some positive reviews, however, criticize the show’s casual treatment of Tolkien’s chronology.

“This season is much better than the disastrous first and second seasons. This time it’s actually worth watching. They still haven’t fixed the chronology or the faithfulness to the source material, but if you don’t scrutinize it too closely, it’s pretty good. The sets and visuals are stunning. There are lots of references to Peter Jackson’s movies, and at times it’s annoying.”

stevenh224

“I’ve liked the show since the first episode, and yes, I’ve read Tolkien. This season is probably the best so far. It’s dark, and it does a great job of hinting at events that are still to come in the canon.”

Bohda

Enthusiastic reviews sit alongside extremely low ratings. Metacritic user ratemonx, for example, gave the season a zero and criticized the dialogue, among other things:

“After the disastrous first and second seasons, I wasn’t sure Amazon could keep it up, but they did it! It’s truly awful. […] The dialogue is just atrocious.”

ratemonx

“If this were an ordinary fantasy show, I’d probably say it was a decent way to pass the time. But this is the most expensive show in history, and it has none of the feeling or soul the source material deserves. The writing is its Achilles’ heel, and the strange departures from Tolkien’s world undermine both the mythology and the tension.”

River E

The first four episodes of the third season are available on Prime Video. The next two will arrive on November 18, followed by the final two on November 25.

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