What to Watch in September: 16 Notable TV Shows & Streaming Movies

Fantasy series debuts September 1 (at 6p PT / 9p ET) on Prime Video

One billion dollars: It'll buy you at least three gallons of gas ... and the most expensive television series ever created. (To be fair, the first season—of what will be at least two—cost merely $462 million on its own, not including marketing costs.) In fact, Amazon's new Lord of the Rings prequel series will likely cost over twice as much to produce than Peter Jackson's lauded film trilogy.

Like that trilogy, season one of The Rings of Power is filmed in New Zealand, though it's not directly adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien's books. Instead, the series depicts a brand new story set in the same world but taking place in the "Second Age," several millennia prior to the events of The Hobbit during a time in which the rings of power were forged by Sauron. That's not to say there won't be familiar characters, however: The Elves Elrond and Galadriel, now played by Robert Aramayo and Morfydd Clark, are key figures in the show. (It helps that they are immortal beings.) Aside from Elves, key characters will be drawn from the Dwarves and the Harfoots (an early form of Hobbit), while settings include the island kingdom of Númenor and the Elvish capital, Lindon. J.A. Bayona directs the first two episodes—which stream back to back on Thursday 9/1—while the remaining S1 episodes (streaming weekly on Fridays starting 9/9) come from Wayne Che Yip and Charlotte Brandstrom. A second season is already in production.

Can't wait until the 1st? The first two episodes will also screen (for free) in theaters the night of August 31st.