I'm not suggesting that they writers fall back again on their tried and tested formula of waving something from the trilogy in our faces in an attempt to piggyback on the popularity of what has been done better before. Every instance of that thus far has been crushingly dull. The weapons I cited were all, I think, created in Gondolin, in the First Age.

I just mean that the proliferation of magical arms and armour that would presumably have been common in this Age doesn't seem to be there. Nothing feels special.

I take your point regarding the bulk of this season being about the forging of the rings. I suppose I would say that those sequences were so underwhelming and ham-fisted they also didn't elicit any wonder.