Review of A Shadow of the Past

So, this is a TV series commissioned by Amazon with the bulk of the story lifted from the vague appendices from the Lord of The Rings books. So lets just say that there quite a lot of room for 'interpretation' and that's not a bad thing because most people haven't read or know of the content in those appendices which is a great basis for a spoiler free experience. The acting is adequate, the costumes and visuals are stunning/beautiful, getting the pre-LOTR / The Hobbit era just right where everything seems just a tad more primitive than the settings for the books we all know and love. The first episode covers the usual drama tropes i.e. Defiance of authority and tradition, forbidden love, an unseen enemy / ominous threat, revenge and to be honest it's handled quite well.

Now for the loaded question and that is that some more cynical out there have complained that there are breaches in the canon and lore of Tolkein when it comes to the 'appearance' and 'uniformity' of groups of characters in this production; I for one don't mind this as that to me is almost incidental (hey they did it partly in The Witcher and we all loved that); for me what is important is the story, character (as in motivation and persona) and the dramatization.

This production is not a 'Wheel of Time' (awful as that was I gave up on it and could not continue) and watching the 1st episode has compelled me to watch more.

Don't listen to the naysayers who wrote off this production before they saw it months ago, open your mind, sit back, relax and enjoy a wonderful fantasy adventure.