Review: Kiff “Lore of the Ring Light”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Lord of the Rings parody! Except instead of jewelry, it’s a Ring Light.

OUR TAKE

The last time I remember covering Kiff was over a year ago for a Halloween special, which I recall saying was very very cute, along with the rest of the show. I haven’t really kept up with it since then, but it looks like the first season ended and they put out a couple half hour specials to hold people’s attention until its second season can start. This is the latter of the two, an attempt to make a more modern parody of the iconic series of Lord of the Rings movies (which are based on books but this is specifically parodying the films), which are over twenty years old at this point. Given Family Guy did their Star Wars episodes thirty years after the release of each of the original trilogy, I guess a part of me thought we had more time, but I guess not! It would also seem like a huge challenge to try and fit the beats from the entire trilogy, but they manage to pick and choose what points make the most sense to keep and make for the best comedy. As mentioned, instead of a ring you wear on your finger that makes you invisible, it’s a special type of light that influencers use for lighting purposes, which helps map the obsession for more insta followers onto the obsession with power pretty well.

Also worth pointing out that this special does the best thing a parody can do: it does not require previous knowledge of the thing it’s referencing for the jokes to work. It certainly helps if you do, like when a character tries many different takes on Gandalf’s “Fly, you Fools”, but if this is going to get more people, specifically kids, to watch these movies, they should be able to just enjoy this and then dive in easier when their Millennial parent sees them watching this and wants to dust off his Special Edition box set. And it may seem contradictory to make the references only the most visible to people who already know, but in my experience, there are so many classic movies that I may have never given a chance if I hadn’t seen it be referenced and poked fun at in shows I watch. Plus, they somehow managed to make an actually solid song about how influencers are wannabe dictators AND they managed to have the restraint to NOT make a joke about how Viggo Mortensen broke his toe…which I could not stop myself from. Overall, a good special, and hopefully this show has enough seasons where they can do the Hobbit movies.