Amazon’s streaming service, Prime Video, is burdened with what it hopes is its one true destiny: to create a fantasy series as popular as Game of Thrones used to be. Can it prevail? Fearsome enemy HBO is casting a long shadow with House of the Dragon, a show that has the major advantage of being a Thrones prequel, but Amazon has a big, iron-spiked prequel of its own. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been given a colossal production budget that you can see on-screen in every scene. And it’s back for season two.
The game here, usually, is to transcend the fantasy genre while serving fantasy devotees. Game of Thrones was the biggest show on TV because it simultaneously pleased people who are naturally drawn to epic prophecies, mythical beasts and sudden disembowelments in kingdoms that have exotic made-up names (but are basically medieval England), and viewers who would ordinarily run a mile from that stuff. While Prime Video’s other big fantasy weapon, The Wheel of Time – yes, Amazon is so desperate to crack this market that it has an insanely lavish back-up fantasy show, in case the main one fails – has struggled to bridge this gap, but The Rings of Power is slightly different. It believes there is no crossover to be achieved, the Rings franchise being so huge that its fans and a mainstream audience are the same thing.
