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Series · Prime Video · 2016

War & Peace

The novel's scale, honored: a soul, a marriage, a country. Not a costume romance.

This is the rare series that lets Pierre be awkward and right, and lets Natasha's disgrace matter. The battles are there so the drawing rooms cannot pretend they are the world.

Give it the evenings it asks. If you only want the dresses, you will miss the only scene that justifies them: a man deciding he is not too important to be useful.

The eight

  1. Industry

    5/10

    Officers, estates, a war that is labor. Pierre does not have a trade and knows it.

  2. Household

    8/10

    Natasha's house, Andrei's, Pierre's search for a wife who is not a project.

  3. Piety

    6/10

    Pierre's hunt for a reason is the religious plot, clumsy and sincere.

  4. Courage

    7/10

    Andrei goes to the war he talked about. The talking was cheaper.

  5. Republic

    7/10

    An invasion is not a backdrop. Moscow emptying is a public act.

  6. Temperance

    6/10

    Natasha's mistake is shown as a mistake. The ball is not the moral.

  7. Truth

    8/10

    It keeps Tolstoy's correction: glory is a story people tell over the dead.

  8. Stewardship

    7/10

    The question is what kind of house is left when the campaign is over.

Live historicallyRead one chapter of the book aloud. Stop while they still want the next.

Series · Prime Video · 2022

The Rings of Power

The old moral world. Uneven as a show, sound as a compass: do not serve the devouring thing.

Tolkien's world was built by a man who believed courage, pity, and stewardship were facts, not aesthetics. This series is an expensive, uneven attempt to stand in that world before the Ring. Judge the attempt by its compass, not by the discourse around the budget.

The compass is right. Evil devours. Craft can be turned. Power offered as a gift is the oldest trap in the book, and the book is older than television. You do not need every episode. You need the standard it assumes: a thing can be worth losing your life for, and a shortcut that saves you by enslaving your children is not a shortcut.

The eight

  1. Industry

    6/10

    Craft, forging, and the labor of holding a kingdom together.

  2. Household

    5/10

    Friendship and oaths more than nurseries. The bonds are still vows.

  3. Piety

    7/10

    A real evil, not a misunderstood brand. Light is allowed to be good.

  4. Courage

    8/10

    People stand where they could have sailed away.

  5. Republic

    6/10

    Kingdoms, duty, the temptation to take a shortcut with power.

  6. Temperance

    7/10

    Splendor is in the service of the story, not of appetite.

  7. Truth

    7/10

    Corruption begins as a lie about a gift.

  8. Stewardship

    8/10

    The whole age is about what you refuse to hand to the dark.

Live historicallyRefuse one convenient shortcut this week that would push the cost onto someone who is not in the room.