The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Rings of Power spent more money than any television series in history to build Second Age Middle-earth, and mostly, you can see where it went: Númenor before its fall, Khazad-dûm at the height of dwarven glory, cities the books only ever described. The first season struggled under the weight of its own mystery-box plotting, but season two's slow reveal of Sauron's true identity gave the show a villain worth the budget — a patient, seductive threat rather than a cartoon evil. Not the show Tolkien purists wanted, but a genuinely ambitious one.