You mentioned having characters only show up when it’s relevant to the plot - I had a similar thought. I wasn’t necessarily looking to cut much, but I felt like the season would have been better paced if it didn’t do as much darting around between plotlines, which caused some episodes to feel as if they were just spinning their wheels. Perhaps they’re running parallel until they intersect rather than true chronological order, which I don’t think is problematic.

I considered pacing it as follows:

Arc/Movie 1:

Focus on the Galadriel/Numenor plotline from episodes 1-5.
End on Numenorians sailing to Middle-Earth
Halbrand, Isildur, etc all in focus.
No dwarves or harfoots
This arc’s fairly strong, at least for introducing charaters, though gives little payoff.

Arc/Movie 2:

Focus on Arondir/Southlands plotline from episodes 1-6, and some of the Elrond/Durin plotline
End on the eruption of Mount Doom
No Numenor (until they show up at the end) or harfoots
The weaker parts of the early Southlands plot could balance nicely with the stronger Khazad-Dum B-plot.

Arc/Movie 3:

Focus on harfoots/Stranger plotline from the whole show, and the remaining other content
Start with the harfoots, balanced by the stronger wrap-up of other plotlines, until handing over to the original conclusion to the season

Interested in your thoughts!