After Seeing The Rings of Power Season 3’s Release Plan, I’m Officially Concerned About the New Episodes
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returns for Season 3 later this year, and the Prime Video show paints a promising picture with its newly released trailer. It teases a darker turn for Middle-earth than we’ve seen from the series before, but there’s one thing I’m concerned about heading into the new episodes: the streamer’s release plan. It’s embracing a unique schedule for its third outing. And although there’s little that can take away from the excitement of Sauron forging the One Ring and Jamie Campbell Bower appearing as Celeborn, the choice is a risky one.
Previous seasons of The Rings of Power have followed a common schedule for Prime Video originals: two or three installments dropping on the premiere date, followed by one episode streaming each week after. It’s a setup many streamers have adopted, giving fans enough to draw them in at the beginning of a new chapter — then building on that momentum week to week. Unfortunately, The Rings of Power Season 3 may struggle to do the latter thanks to its major change in approach.
The Rings of Power Season 3 Is Embracing a Strange Release Plan
The Rings of Power Season 3’s release schedule marks a change from its prior approach, as the series will drop a whopping four installments on its November 11 premiere date, followed by two new episodes each week for the two weeks after. It’s a strange rollout, as it doesn’t fully conform to the weekly-release or binge models. Instead, it lands somewhere in the middle, making it feel very experimental. It’s not the first series to try straddling that line between the two major release models. However, its decision to do so in the middle of the series — and at a time when things are really starting to heat up — is a head-scratcher. It risks hurting the latest outing’s impact and momentum, which is especially unfortunate at this point of the story.
The Rings of Power Season 3’s Release Schedule Risks Hurting the Series’ Impact & Momentum
The Rings of Power‘s Season 3 release plan is a questionable one for any series, as the split model prevents a show from staying in the spotlight for an extended period of time. Word of mouth can go a long way in growing a series’ popularity, and we’ve seen it benefit other fantasy projects, like Game of Thrones. By condensing The Rings of Power Season 3’s run to just three weeks overall, Prime Video isn’t allowing the conversation surrounding the newest outing to build. Unless it really impresses with its latest batch of episodes, its impact is likely to be a bit softer because of it. Just as people realize the show is back on, it will be over and out of the limelight. It’s a shame, as this season’s developments deserve more attention, not less.
In addition to the short time frame likely causing Season 3’s hype to fizzle out before it takes off, the lack of week-to-week speculation is also a bummer. The Rings of Power is out of mysterious identities to reveal following its Sauron and Gandalf twists, but a weekly release model would allow it to build suspense in other ways. Now, viewers won’t be left wanting more for very long, removing some of the fun of watching the show. And you’d think Prime Video would know better, as split release models have been pretty hit-or-miss when used for other shows.
Split Release Models Have Hurt Other Streaming Shows
The Rings of Power isn’t the only streaming series to break a season into chunks rather than releasing episodes one at a time — and even popular titles have struggled with this approach. Wednesday Season 2 is a prime example, as Netflix released the first and second half of the eight-episode outing separately…and doing so killed some of the buzz. The same is true of You Season 4, which did a slightly better job of building suspense between its first and second half. However, much of the talk petered out during its ending.
Of course, there are streaming shows that have done decently with a split like The Rings of Power‘s, but the two that come to mind benefited from other circumstances. Stranger Things Season 5 dropped in three separate parts, but it was notably the final chapter. As such, those episodes were going to draw audiences no matter how they came out. Prime Video also pulled this off with The Legend of Vox Machina Season 4, which released three episodes each week for four weeks straight. But the animated fantasy show consists of 30-minute chapters, so that was a bit more understandable. By contrast, The Rings of Power Season 3’s rollout feels unnecessarily risky. The series was doing fine with its previous approach, but hopefully, the coming outing will be so good that the change won’t matter.
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