[William Cloud Hicklin]

Crisis Magazine:

Reviewing the series is a daunting task, not only because of its scale but because it is such a thoroughgoing artistic failure. Critics of all stripes have been quick to note the show’s many defects: ludicrous action sequences, amateurish cinematography, and—as Forbes Magazine put it—“inexplicably terrible” writing. A study of the failures of The Rings of Power could very well serve as an introductory course in filmmaking—but would certainly be far too much for a single review.

The Forbes review cited in Crisis:

Amazon’s “adaptation” is badly made TV with a nonsensical story built on wild coincidences, contrived plotlines and a blatant disregard for the various building blocks that make any story complete: Logical character choices, a sense of time and place, and narrative tension—not to mention an overly large cast of mostly forgettable and uncharismatic characters, some wholly made up for the show and others changed entirely as to be almost unrecognizable.

In every way that truly matters, The Rings Of Power fails from the writing to the acting to the presentation. It fails as an adaptation, neither enriching Tolkien’s work nor remaining true to it. It fails as a good fantasy, giving us generic tropes and melodrama rather than blazing new ground. And it fails as a compelling story, filled with cheap mystery boxes and unsurprising ‘twists.
[...]
This is not a good fantasy story even divorced from Tolkien’s work. Imagine re-adapting this back to book form. How could you? Simply jotting down the dialogue on paper would be torture.

The characters are forgettable at best. I didn’t even mention several of them because their stories amount to so precious little and their personalities are as flat and dry and empty as the Southlands... The Rings Of Power is an empty husk of a show. The story’s pacing is all of the map and it lacks any real tension or stakes.

In the end, it’s seven-and-a-half episodes of filler before finally arriving at the obvious twist and the forging of the rings in the final half of the final episode. It makes egregious changes to Tolkien’s work for no apparent reason and with no fidelity to the source material. Frankly, we should stop referring to it as an adaptation of Tolkien’s work entirely. Amazon should have saved the money and hired better writers to create something new instead. The only way The Lord Of The Rings actually serves this story is as marketing material.

Polygon, which has tried to be positive about this thing:

The driving forces behind the first season all revolve around identities obscured by the writers, not deep desires of the characters.... Most other characters [besides Durin] are reduced to simply learning the hidden roles dealt out in the secret game of Werewolf the writers have been playing. Galadriel’s history with her husband, Bronwyn’s plight in the Southlands with her son Theo, absolutely everything about the harfoots — all of it reduced to parlor room debate over who might be holding the card that says they’re the Dark Lord.

Galadriel, the ostensible protagonist of the series, is the same person at the end of season 1 that she was at the start; the only appreciable difference by the season finale is one she shares with most of the big players in The Rings of Power: A bunch of characters that projected competence now look like huge dopes.

The Review Geek agrees, (titling its season wrap-up "How to Burn a Billion Dollars"):

The character development is almost non-existent through large swathes of this season, and it’s presented in a really questionable way. The show has a bizarre tendency to lean on mystery box gimmicks for things that aren’t even mysteries.
[...]
But then even through all of this, the show has a really awful way of handling its dialogue. Characters either repeat information constantly or float into grandiose but nonsensical bits of dialogue that are almost laughable for how they’re delivered. Early on, Arondir is warned not to go down a hole as he doesn’t know what’s down there, so in reply he says “that is why I must go.” I could be here all day rattling off instances of dialogue like this.
[...]
Speaking of characters though, Galadriel in particular has to be one of the most unlikable protagonists in a project this year, if not in the past decade. [This is a common observation among many critics] She’s arrogant, rude, abrupt and unbelievably self-entitled, not to mention smug in most encounters. She walks around with a big scowl on her face and embodies all the characteristics you’d expect from a perfect “Mary Sue” character. The others here range from blandly forgettable to exhibiting sparks of promise (mostly Disa, Elrond and Durin) but largely, everything here is a big glossy void of…nothing.

There’s absolutely nothing here that exhibits depth, majesty or richness lore. Instead, what we get is an empty husk; a show playing puppeteer with Tolkien’s world but devoid of heart, reason and logic, with narrative faults rippling right the way through its production.

Startefacts thinks that the Harfoots were actually

the creepiest part of the show... uncomfortable cult vibes.

Geeks and Gamers pulls no punches:

The CIA no longer needs to resort to waterboarding anyone; they merely need to force them to watch this abysmal show, which is tantamount to torture, and no hardened criminal or terrorist will resist divulging whatever information they want. Beyond that, the show serves no other purpose. It is easily of the worst written television shows to ever be conjured. No amount of excuses or minor corrections could redeem Rings of Power; it is broken on nearly every conceivable level.
...constantly cuts away from anything that could remotely be of interest to the audience, choosing horrific dialogue and bad character moments over any potential for quality. This billion-dollar disaster is an affront to the senses and an insult to all intelligent viewers.