'Rings of Power' Season 3 and 'Blade Runner 2099' Lead November Streaming

Amazon Prime Video will stream the third season of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" starting November 11, with the "Blade Runner" sequel series "Blade Runner 2099" following on November 25. New York Times critic Noel Murray named both among November's most promising new streaming titles, a slate that also includes Amy Poehler's new mystery project and the final season of "Yellowjackets."

The November lineup, as Murray frames it, spans every major platform — HBO Max, Hulu, Apple TV and more. But his two most detailed picks both sit on Prime Video, and both are prequels or extensions of established franchises. That fact alone says something about the streaming market this season: the biggest bets are still the safest ones.

What happens in Season 3 of 'The Rings of Power'?

The "Lord of the Rings" prequel returns for what Murray describes as "a third season of fantasy quests and visually impressive battles" featuring J.R.R. Tolkien's characters, set across "mountains, islands, caves and volcanoes."

The season's central conflict has sharpened. As Season 3 begins, the dark lord Sauron — played by Charlie Vickers — has been sending orc armies out to fight the humans and the elves for control of Middle-earth. Other powerful factions, notably, "remain on the sidelines, waiting to see how the struggle will play out."

The elves Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) are roaming far and wide to find allies in kingdoms caught up in their own civil wars. Sauron, meanwhile, is trying to learn the secret to forging an all-powerful ring — the ring — that could render all the political maneuvering moot. The series is, in effect, dramatizing the backstory Tolkien only sketched.

What is 'Blade Runner 2099' about?

The sequel series arrives 80 years after the first "Blade Runner" film, from 1982, and 50 years after the events of "Blade Runner 2049." Murray notes it depicts "the same kind of technologically advanced future world, where beneath the glittering surfaces lies some deep rot."

The biggest change is structural: the power dynamic between humankind and their android creations has flipped. Society is now tightly controlled by the humanoid replicants, some of whom are seeking the next stage of evolution for their kind.

Michelle Yeoh plays one of those restless replicants, Olwen, who is days away from the end of her life span. Hunter Schafer plays Cora, a human passing as a machine, partnered with Olwen on a mission to investigate rogue replicants. It is a neat inversion of the original film's premise — humans hunting machines — and the casting of Yeoh as a dying android gives the premise its emotional anchor.

What does this change for viewers?

Not much, structurally: these are franchise extensions, not new bets. Murray's own caveat applies to all of it — "streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice," he writes. The dates, and the promise, hold only until they don't. November's real test is whether two expensive legacy properties can still command the attention they were built for.