I wouldn't.
I'm not being snarky - if I was told to go make a series based on the LotR + Hobbit license (but not either of those stories), I would either make
Rosie's Garden (a cosy "murder mystery" series where Rose Gamgee and her kids solve minor crimes and mysteries around Hobbiton while Sam is off being Mayor) or
The Fall of Kings (the fall of Arthedain and the breaking of the Gondorian Line of Kings, and all the drama associated with that).
But if I
had to do the Second Age, I guess I'd start by asking what people like about LotR (books and movies):
- Hobbits - so I'd have something like the Harfeet, nudging around the edge of the plot and being generally adorable.
- Elves - that means I'm doing Lindon and Eregion, and probably using Elrond, Galadriel, Gil-Galad, and Celebrimbor (plus Cirdan, Celeborn, maybe Celebrian).
- Wizards - so I need a Gandalf-figure, who may or may not be Sauron.
- Scruffy men (think the Viggo & Sean Bean reaction back in the day) - so I probably want Numenoreans for that.
- The landscape and locations - so we're filming in New Zealand and featuring as many named locations as we can. Lindon, Eregion, Moria, Numenor, it's all in there.
I'm already pushing up against a very similar plot to RoP. Hmm... I think I'd make it an Elvish show, because compressing the timeline wouldn't even occur to me, and it lets me keep my lead characters around. Let's say S1 is the founding of Eregion, S2 is the forging of the Rings (with several characters coming together to do the work, and one being
renamed Annatar later on), S3 is the War of the Elves and Sauron... and at the end of it, the Numenoreans show up out of
nowhere to thrash him and forge an alliance with the Elves.
Then S4 is an anthology, because we're comfortable enough to be able to do that. Every episode is a different group encountering the Numenoreans over the next thousand years or whatever. It's all very monster-of-the-week, and we bring in things like the creation of the Nazgul, whatever else is happening in the second half of the Age. The early episodes are good contacts, but as the season goes on the Numenoreans gets darker. Finally, in the last episode, we visit Numenor itself for the first time, for the death of Tar-Palantir and Pharazon's usurpation of Miriel.
S5 is the Rise of Pharazon, the Fall of Numenor, and the Last Alliance (all right, this might be two seasons). We don't see our original elvish protagonists again until Elendil and co are washed up after the wrack of the isle; it's a proper "oh wow!" moment for the viewers to meet them all again. If we're very clever, we might make that the S5 finale and then do the Last Alliance as a movie, to wrap up all our plots at last.
Big problems with this? Numenor doesn't show up until the fourth season! And we spend that entire season having to connect with a new cast of characters every episode. For the first three seasons, there's no obvious relatable characters either - they're all immortal, ageless elves or stone-wrought dwarves. (Though an Elrond/Celebrian romance is a must.)
hS