On stage, Aragorn was portrayed by Evan Buliung in the three-hour production of The Lord of the Rings, which opened in 2006 in Toronto, Canada.

The three-hour production, along with a recent television serial, heralds a campaign by Egypt's movie industry, the world's third largest, to counter the huge incursions by militant Islam into Arab society.

The latest example can be found, beginning tomorrow at 9 P.M. on PBS, in a two-part, three-hour production imported for "Masterpiece Theater."

Carpeting has been installed, but the new, comfortable seats, which are supposed to make it easier to sit through a three-hour production "without squirming," have not, he said.

It's too bad that Mr. Orth does not make his entrance until the middle of the second act, because the three-hour production, directed by David Warren, could use more of him.

There is very little physical action in the three-hour production.

Not everyone made it through the whole three-hour production.

Directed by Nicholas Hytner and presented as two three-hour productions, the show is dense with religious and social allegory and a haunted awareness of a universe in decay.

The three-hour production, on CBS at 8 tonight, is very much Mr. Liebman's movie.

It's a tricky balance, and sometimes the three-hour production, which trims the folio text by roughly a thousand lines, indeed succeeds in achieving it.