Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King will make its network television debut on December 15th on TNT. The cable network has already aired the first two movies, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers over the last two years. The Return of the King, for those of you living under a rock, wraps up the series. TNT is airing it in HD. It'll be available on VOD beginning Dec. 24th.

As is customary with TNT, The Return of the King will air for three nights in a row. And, on Sunday December 17th, it will be preceded by the first two movies. With commercials, that's more than eleven hours of programming. I pity the fool who sits down to watch that. I mean, yes, Viggo Mortenson and Orlando Bloom are super hot in all three movies, but if you're going to spend that much time watching television, why not just buy the DVDs?

The Sci Fi network just announced its purchase of the U.S. rights to a German production, titled Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King, based in part on the Ring of the Nibelungs myth. Never heard of the myth? Apparently it's been known to have inspired composer Richard Wagner's operas and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, so what's one more?

The movie stars Benno Furmann, Kristanna Loken, Alicia Witt, Julian Sands and Max Von Sydow. The German version first aired on German TV in 2004, where it was the year's top-rated TV movie.

Honestly though, if Sci Fi's track record is any indication, I have high hopes for this mini-series. Though, the question is, is this mini-series meant to stand on its own, or is it a test precursor to a full-blown series? The movie was top-rated on German TV in 2004, if that's any indication to its success here in the U.S.