One thing that social media and sites like Reddit have done is to provide TV series writers and producers with waves of instantaneous feedback about their work as soon as it airs.
This has both upsides and downsides, though in some cases it can potentially allow for ‘course correction’ of a show’s creative elements if that series had troubled or underwhelming beginnings. Whether said corrections work is up to the audience.
Amazon’s recent “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” series has certainly scored plenty of feedback and criticism over its first season. However, in a recent interview with Vanity Fair, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay revealed that audience reaction is going to have little impact on the show’s second season which was pretty much written before the first season was released. Payne says:
“In terms of how [viewer reactions] impacted season 2, we wrote most of season 2 before season 1 came out. We’re refining the last bits of it now as we’re starting to shoot. But really, the cake was kind of baked before the audience response came in.
Certainly, you look at audience response, and you see what characters people love, and what kinds of storytelling move them. I wouldn’t say we’re over-correcting for any of it, but we’re certainly listening to people’s responses.”
Payne adds that the majority of responses ended up aligning with the show’s creators on what they thought worked and what didn’t. The first season of “The Rings of Power” is currently streaming on Prime Video, with the second recently beginning production in the UK.
