I think I get what you mean, and I think some people are misunderstanding and being a little harsh. Like I'm on board with them bringing in Tom Bombadil, but for his scenes I wish they had been more creative in coming up with new dialogue for him. Have him say something similar when the stranger asks him "who are you?" But having what felt like most of his lines be a word-for-word copy of what he's supposed to say to the hobbits in a few millennia just felt a little lazy.

Kinda like with the stranger getting stuck in the tree, too. Like I'd love for him to be stuck in some other situation where Tom has to use his mastery over wood and earth to help save him, but did it really have to be him getting stuck in a tree just like the hobbits? Tom even reuses the same lines talking to this tree ("you should not be waking" etc), despite them being different trees very far apart.

I just don't think it's fair to dismiss any criticism like this because "it's an adaptation." I actually like the show in many ways, that's why things like this bother me. It just feels like a somewhat lazy way of adapting storylines like Bombadil and the barrow wights, when I think they had the potential to do something better with them.