Season 5 of Cobra Kai:
Disappointing. The protagonists' arcs were largely resolved in previous seasons, and Terry Silver is a lame, cardboard villain. Also, implausibilities piled up to the point where suspension of disbelief became difficult. Still fun enough to watch if you're invested in the plot. But the series is on fumes.
Rings of Power, Episode 3:
Mediocre. The different plotlines still don't cohere.
The Harfoot/Hobbit plot is particularly bad. The Numenor plotline deviates greatly from Tolkien's original, for no good reason other than that they don't have the copyright to the Akallabeth (which is part of the Silmarillion). I'm not writing this series off yet. But it's moving in the wrong direction.
House of the Dragon, Episode 4:
Another strong episode! These showrunners clearly know what they are doing. Same can't be said for 1 and 2 above, though in fairness it's much easier to do well in the early days of a series (HoD), than in the late ones (Cobra Kai), and easier still if you have a solid plot in the source material, and you are actually allowed to use it. Rhaenyra is wronged in this episode, but it also begins to subtly raise the question of whether things might be better if she were NOT the heir to the throne.
I may have more to say about these in the future, if time allows.
