@ Nicholas Palazzo. I agree entirely. I am writing under the assumption that the Hosts are reading this and that they can be convinced. And I'm sorry I keep getting carried away with these internet discussions.
That being said, I also agree that Episode 9 is really tight. That's why I think we should make it longer, or split it into 2 episodes. My line of reasoning is that absent a dire need to do otherwise (to avoid blatant plot holes or contradictions in the storyline*), we should strive to never skip any of the story** that's in the published Silmarilion, and any constraints we have set on episode length or season length should be abandoned if they conflict with showing as much material in the published Silmarilion as possible. I believe that this is in the spirit of Prof Olsen's vision statement for the Silmarilion Film Project: "I want to do an adaptation completely untrammeled by reality. No restrictions of any kind—pure awesomeness without check."
*Or if it's completely unfilmable. But we did the Ainulindale, so we should be able to film anything.
**Action scenes and dialog especially.