I am quite enjoying RoP and I think the Jackson movies are garbage. At least RoP takes itself seriously. Jackson just seemed to go for the funny stuff and jokes whenever he could. You are wrong to judge RoP based on the first 15 minutes. (You remind me of my partner who has strong opinions on all the shows and movies--not just LoTR--based on what she read on the Internet, which shows she hasn't seen a frame of.) This is one of those series that takes an episode or two to get wound up. I felt that they rushed introducing all of the main characters in the first episode, there are so many of them. They could have spaced it out, but it worked out anyway. Oh yes, I read the books and quite enjoyed them (NOT the Simirilirili) when I was a kid, 50 years ago.