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While it was definitely interesting to hear those parts from The Hunt for the Ring (Saruman again was great: I'm really looking forward to the end of Book Three by now), from my point of view it did more harm than good. The mystery of the Black Riders is one of the key elements of the First Book for me. This mystery is now entirely gone, and somehow this leaves me with an incomplete impression. Of course we are told the Black Riders are scary, and we hear the Hobbits are frightened, but while the reader is scared, too, the listener here is not (or at least I am not).
It has been said earlier, that the BBC adaptation proves Peter Jackson wrong in claiming that he didn't have enough time to tell the whole story. I think this is a little unfair, considering the different media. A radio adaptation is all dialogue and all plot, and I don't think a screen adaptation this dense could have worked. The screen has other benefits the radio has not. I'm not saying that Jackson didn't waste a horrible amount of time, but his argument remains valid.
However, one thing the this episode showed was, that it is possible to include the Crickhollow section into the adapted story in reasonable time, thus giving Merry and Pippin a decent introduction. I really liked this part and missed it very much in the Jackson Trilogy.
One thing that was a bit of a let down to me in this episode were some of the voices, which all seemed to be perfect in the first episode. I'm afraid, I think Gwaihir sounds involuntarily funny, the Witch-King simply fails to be scary, and the praised Aragorn absolutely doesn’t fit my mental image.
I agree that Butterbur was excellent, though.
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