Lord of the Rings TV series gets multi-season order at Amazon

[Michael Murry]

If I understand the legal situation surrounding the proposed television series and possible spin-offs, the TV programs may cover anything and everything in Middle Earth from after The Hobbit (book and films?) but before LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (book and film?). To begin figuring out what this means as a practical, story-telling matter, I consulted the relevant Middle Earth chronology (for the Third Age) from Appendix B of Lord of the Rings (the book) which reads as follows:

2942 Bilbo returns to the Shire with the Ring. Sauron returns in secret to Mordor.
...
3001 Bilbo's farewell feast [on his 111th birthday]. Gandalf suspects his ring to be the One Ring. The guard on the Shire is doubled. Gandalf seeks for news of Gollum and calls on the help of Aragorn.

I take it, then, that these prospective television programs and spin-offs can cover anything and everything in Middle Earth from 2943 to 3000 of the Third Age, a period of 58 years (inclusive). Still, I can't see how the characters and their story arcs can make any sense without reference to what came before and what comes after. In other words, we seem to have sequel and prequel combined into one: with the former coming after what no one can legally tell us about (but which we know anyway) and the latter coming before something else that no one can legally tell us about (but which we know anyway), either. How does anything like that work outside of a "secret" American grand jury proceeding leaked to the media by anonymous accusers on an hourly basis? Game of Thrones, or House of Cards? Inquiring minds want to know.