So I read a ton of negative stuff from very butt hurt Tolkien purists and was expecting to not like this. Not that I am a Tolkien purist but I do prefer adaptations to stay faithful to source material. I watched both of them back to back this afternoon and probably would have gone another two rounds if they had four episodes out.
The pacing was great, it never felt slow to me and in fact the time flew by. The sets and CGI are top notch. I thought they laid on the girl power a little too thick especially the Galadriel ninja vs troll scene and it was not super believable that the village healer and her bastard son could take an orc down.
I thought the casting was pretty solid for the most part. The male elves annoyed me, Elrond and his buddy look too similar and they just walk across the continent to show up at a dwarf door? No mounts, no party, just two dudes with what they have in their pockets taking in the countryside.
I was very worried there were going to be some Witcher or worse, Wheel of Time, level diversity hires that took away from the show, but there weren't.
The dwarf wife was the only real casting miss IMO and after the initial 'what' from seeing her, she held her own in the scene IMO.