Reading all this has just made me realize, again, why I don't like social media. I don't understand all the negativity people keep writing on this. If you don't like the show, don't watch it! Just silently go away.

Yeah, maybe Charlie Vickers is a really good actor and the point is to make your skin crawl. If so it's working!

I'm almost 70 years old and I started reading all things Tolkien when I was about 10. I have probably read The Hobbit and LOTR's over 40 times. His other stuff not as much and not recently. I'm glad that even knowing it's not following the writings of Tolkien to the letter, I can still enjoy it for the story it is. All those books, movies, and TV shows, are made to do one thing. Take our imagination into the story, letting us live and die with the characters. If we get hung up on every detail, then how can we see the adventures in ourselves?

The Stranger even looks and acts, like he could be a younger Gandalf. But I never thought of the Dark Wizard as one of the blue wizards. He looks like he could be a form of Saruman, but because of that, I don't think he is. Also, Saruman didn't start out evil. He was the most knowledgeable and, unofficially at least, the leader of the wizards in the Hobbit. So maybe Saruman is one of the blue wizards.