Game of Thrones - mostly

[Ex-California]

All the best television shows, know that they are television shows, especially the 8-13 episodes seasons of one story. All of Game of Thrones best episodes are episodes that know they are television episodes, all their worst episode are when they jump from character to character, location to location, way too much, and little plot and character development occurs.

As I was running through Season 5 last night, I realized how wrong you are about this. An entire episode devoted to Arya in Bravos, scrubbing floors & washing dead bodies, would not be good television. It would be unwatchable television. There are too many characters to give them each one episode in a season and call their story for that season done.

Not every episode is a gem, and this is the nature of story telling; sometimes you have to get through some less interesting stuff to get to the point, but it definitely adds to character development. Bopping around between some characters to catch up with them, to see what they have going on, is a solid way to tell a story when there are this many characters involved.

.....

Hardhome last night. Nerd enjoyed it! Now that's some good tv.

Aya's only good scenes were with the hound. The many faced god arc was boring.

My wife wanted to watch it all again before the new season. The second time around I just fast forwarded pretty much everything with Daenarys (unless fighting dragons), Sansa, Aya (unless with the hound), Cersei, and Ygritte (unless in a fight scene). That old Pope dude got fastforwarded too. The only dialogue worth watching again is Tyrion's.

You skip by Cersei? Dang.

Agree that the Arya/Hound time together was solid stuff. The developed mutual respect despite hating each other was well thought out, directed & acted.

This was fleshed out in the books really well. The actors pulled it off

[Kath]

This was fleshed out in the books really well. The actors pulled it off

I admit to not reading the books. I tried, but I found the writing a bit awkward for me. (Awkward may not be the best word, here.) I got through what would be most of season 1, book wise.

[StCapps]

As I was running through Season 5 last night, I realized how wrong you are about this. An entire episode devoted to Arya in Bravos, scrubbing floors & washing dead bodies, would not be good television. It would be unwatchable television. There are too many characters to give them each one episode in a season and call their story for that season done.

Not every episode is a gem, and this is the nature of story telling; sometimes you have to get through some less interesting stuff to get to the point, but it definitely adds to character development. Bopping around between some characters to catch up with them, to see what they have going on, is a solid way to tell a story when there are this many characters involved.

Oh please, yeah a whole episode of the lamest material would suck, that hardly proves me wrong in general. The character development is better done in episodes that don't jump all over the place, and most interesting plot movement occurs when one location is emphasized a lot more than others in an episode.

Go ahead name your top five GoT episodes, I guarantee that more than half of them take place in mostly one location, with a deep dive into the group of characters at that location, as opposed to jumping from characters travelling from point A to point B with dialogue to help with the filler. The only way you can front like I'm wrong is you don't stop to notice that most of favorite GoT episodes follow the pattern that I suggest.

.....

Hardhome last night. Nerd enjoyed it! Now that's some good tv.

Aya's only good scenes were with the hound. The many faced god arc was boring.

My wife wanted to watch it all again before the new season. The second time around I just fast forwarded pretty much everything with Daenarys (unless fighting dragons), Sansa, Aya (unless with the hound), Cersei, and Ygritte (unless in a fight scene). That old Pope dude got fastforwarded too. The only dialogue worth watching again is Tyrion's.

You skip by Cersei? Dang.

Agree that the Arya/Hound time together was solid stuff. The developed mutual respect despite hating each other was well thought out, directed & acted.

The part of Hardhome that makes the episode so great, is that it takes place in mostly one location for a long stretch at the end of the episode, if they kept jumping to other characters not at Hardhome, in the middle of the battle, that would have been stupid.

Yet I'm wrong? Nah I'm not wrong, you are just reaching really hard to dismiss my clearly correct assessment.

[StCapps]

I get why they needed to keep her in the minor leagues, but that also puts the cap on how interesting her part of the story can be, until she finally starts doing shit in the majors. Her end of the story has been way more interesting since finally making the jump, and that's not a coincidence.

Sure. Your point is that the climax of a story is more interesting than the non climax part of a story? The characters that have had 9 full seasons to date have all had less interesting parts of their journeys.

Yeah but Danny had the longest portion of her journey spent on less interesting parts, than any other major character, including Arya, and now she's playing catch up. Arya has the same problem though, too much point A to point B travel, while avoiding the major action. I get it, you like Danny, but surely you can see her character got the short end of the stick, plot wise, same with Arya.

Being kept on the sidelines, isn't as interesting, who knew? Tyrion Knows, he was straight dope for four seasons, then he takes a long detour to Essos while he drinks, makes jokes, and gets enslaved, and his part of the story gets a lot less interesting, even after he finally hooks up with Danny. Saved only by Dinklage's flair for dialogue, that is not a coincidence.

Essos just sucks, and spending time avoiding the big leagues is way more boring than the shit going on in Westeros, Varys Knows too. Interest level in even the best characters on the show will suffer from a detour to Essos, that's how shitty it is.

[brewster]

I gotta agree Essos is where plots go to die, but I disagree about the proportioning of the threads. Yes, the focused episodes are some of the best, but they wouldn't be without all the plot segments leading up to it. What makes the whole thing work is the use of varying numbers of segments and lengths. The Wire would not have worked having episodes entirely about the cops and then episodes about the gangsters. That said, Martin himself screws this pooch in the books by #4&5. They meander too much with too many threads and characters, much of which was ditched for the show. They greatly improved Jaime's trip to Dorn, which sucked in the books. Sending Bronn with him was genius.

[GloryofGreece]

I gotta agree Essos is where plots go to die, but I disagree about the proportioning of the threads. Yes, the focused episodes are some of the best, but they wouldn't be without all the plot segments leading up to it. What makes the whole thing work is the use of varying numbers of segments and lengths. The Wire would not have worked having episodes entirely about the cops and then episodes about the gangsters. That said, Martin himself screws this pooch in the books by #4&5. They meander too much with too many threads and characters, much of which was ditched for the show. They greatly improved Jaime's trip to Dorn, which sucked in the books. Sending Bronn with him was genius.

Martin screw the whole thing by trying to subvert Tolkien fantasy genre. You can't have an epic poem and lose the hero element to it. Then it's not epic. No hero. It's a long list of post modern deconstructionist nilhlistic short stories would work better if that was what he wanted to do.

[StCapps]

I gotta agree Essos is where plots go to die, but I disagree about the proportioning of the threads. Yes, the focused episodes are some of the best, but they wouldn't be without all the plot segments leading up to it. What makes the whole thing work is the use of varying numbers of segments and lengths. The Wire would not have worked having episodes entirely about the cops and then episodes about the gangsters. That said, Martin himself screws this pooch in the books by #4&5. They meander too much with too many threads and characters, much of which was ditched for the show. They greatly improved Jaime's trip to Dorn, which sucked in the books. Sending Bronn with him was genius.

Indeed, but Game of Thrones isn't The Wire. The Wire knew it was TV show, and had TV episodes that would be great on their own without seeing any prior episodes, and they were much better at using an ensemble cast to accomplish that than GoT. GoT forgets that it's TV show far too often for my tastes, but The Wire does not.

One of the biggest problems with TV shows these days are that too many shows are trying to be The Wire, and failing at it because they don't take big enough advantage from the fact that they are a TV show, in an attempt to evoke the feel of the TV Novel that The Wire nailed to perfection. But what these shows don't realize, is that The Wire did not shy away from being a TV show, it embraced it, while still maintaining the TV Novel feel, and that is what makes The Wire so great.

But it's really hard to strike that balance with between telling a larger story and making sure the story of that episode has enough self-contained elements to it that it's still interesting on it's own, and not just as a part of the larger whole, that way it doesn't just blur into every other episode. So if a show is unable to accomplish that on a regular basis, then being less like a TV show will be to it's determent, not it's advantage.

Not every TV show can do what The Wire did, and most shows shouldn't even try, because it's too damn hard, and overdoing it is very often the outcome. Game of Thrones has trouble striking the balance, and that's it's biggest issue as a TV show.

[brewster]

Not every TV show can do what The Wire did, and most shows shouldn't even try, because it's too damn hard, and overdoing it is very often the outcome. Game of Thrones has trouble striking the balance, and that's it's biggest issue as a TV show.

You're certainly entitled to your taste, but I think you're overthinking it. Some stories are more focused on their heroes than others, but this structure allows "novel type" stories to be told that the structure you prefer would not. GoT structurally follows the books very closely, chapters were titled "jaime", "Jon" or "Tyrion", the structure is inherent in the material. But by book 4 he had too many threads and ran off the rails. Plenty of other books use this multi-thread approach, what comes to my mind 1st is David Brin's Upliftseries, with storytelling across several galaxies by the last trilogy.

[StCapps]

Not every TV show can do what The Wire did, and most shows shouldn't even try, because it's too damn hard, and overdoing it is very often the outcome. Game of Thrones has trouble striking the balance, and that's it's biggest issue as a TV show.

You're certainly entitled to your taste, but I think you're overthinking it. Some stories are more focused on their heroes than others, but this structure allows "novel type" stories to be told that the structure you prefer would not. GoT structurally follows the books very closely, chapters were titled "jaime", "Jon" or "Tyrion", the structure is inherent in the material. But by book 4 he had too many threads and ran off the rails. Plenty of other books use this multi-thread approach, what comes to my mind 1st is David Brin's Upliftseries, with storytelling across several galaxies by the last trilogy.

Sounds like you agree with me. I think the show started going downhill after about the fourth season, right around when you think the books started to go with too many threads, jumping from location to location, with no real focus.
/shrugs

[brewster]

Sounds like you agree with me. I think the show started going downhill after about the fourth season, right around when you think the books started to go with too many threads, jumping from location to location, with no real focus.
/shrugs

No, I think the show writers did a much better job than Martin did. I will agree doings on the wall and in Kings Landing were the most compelling, the arc of the 'High Sparrow' was fucking brilliant, as was Lady Olenna.