'The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power' Showrunner Says Season 3 is "Fast-Paced"

JD Payne and Patrick McKay have never been as involved in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power as they are now, in the third season. Of the eight episodes in the new season, the showrunners wrote the scripts for five – for comparison, in the second season they were only credited with writing two episodes.

In an interview with Omelete before the premiere, Payne justified the duo's more "hands-on" approach, citing the ease of production, while also crediting the writers' room that contributed to the structure of the third season. Check it out!

OMELETE: Looking at the credits for season 3, I noticed that you and Patrick are directly credited with writing five of the eight episodes. Why did you decide to be more direct in your writing this time, and how does that affect the series?

PAYNE: We had a writers' room that contributed greatly to enriching the narratives and bringing ideas to the table, but we realized that this story is very specific, combining Tolkien's mythology with what we ourselves have already developed from it. We've lived and breathed this series daily for eight years, so we found it was more efficient to take on direct writing of the episodes to speed up pre-production and begin filming. However, we greatly value the contributions of the writers' room team along the way.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returns for its third season on November 11th, with four new episodes. Subsequent episodes will be released weekly, every Wednesday.