Okay, I stayed up way too late last night binge-watching the first two episodes of “The Rings of Power.” Here’s a snap review based on my first impressions.

Initial reaction: I’m sold. A few potential spoilers to follow, so be careful scrolling down.

As a Tolkien geek, I had to be a little concerned that the studio didn’t have the rights to anything but the trilogy itself. There’s a lot of material for a story set in the Second Age that they don’t have available. On the other hand, there are the Appendices to the trilogy – more than enough material to tell a good Second Age story, even if one would have to fill in a lot of details.

What matters is whether the end result is recognizably rooted in the legendarium, and so far I have to say I’m very pleased. I’m already seeing some very interesting takes on known characters and cultures. Our introductions to Galadriel, Elrond, Gil-galad, and Celebrimbor are all superb. The other cultures we get to see – societies of men in “the Southlands,” the Dwarves of a living Khazad-dum, and especially a tribe of proto-Hobbits – all strike the right notes.

They are taking some liberties with the canon timeline. For example, they’re clearly going to be compressing a couple thousand years of Second Age history down into a single human lifetime. I suspect they’re also going to be rearranging a few events and making up a few out of whole cloth for the sake of the story.

(Meanwhile, yes, there are several roles cast with actors of color. I have absolutely no problem with that, and the idiots review-bombing the series on that basis can piss right the fuck off, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve long since reached the limits of my patience with that nonsense.)

A couple of bits of business did have me scratching my head. There’s a whole sequence with Galadriel in the second episode that struck me as just weird. No, I don’t think even a first-rank Noldo Elf can expect to be able to swim the Atlantic.

There’s also a character, identified so far only as “the Stranger,” whose role is a complete mystery. Putting down my bet right now: what we’re seeing is the first arrival of Gandalf in Middle-earth, several thousand years before he first appears in canon. Which is going to be a surprising but very neat bit of story, if I’m right about what’s going on there.

None of that was sufficient to pull me out of the story for more than a moment or two at a time. The story is otherwise superb, the character acting and development are very good, and the visual spectacle of the thing is just gorgeous. I suspect they’ve got a long-running success here, if they can keep up the pace and the audience doesn’t prove to have pre-judged the thing before it gets a chance.