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The Fall of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2
A Promising Start? Not Quite
When Amazon announced its ambitious project to adapt J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, expectations were sky-high. Backed by the most expensive budget ever allocated to a TV series at the time, The Rings of Power was poised to be a blockbuster hit. However, reality proved far less glamorous. The inaugural season debuted to largely negative reviews and a dismal viewer retention rate, with only about 37% of viewers watching all the way through. This indicated a significant disconnect between the creators' vision and audience preferences, hinting at underlying issues that would plague subsequent episodes.