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Mike Hale writes in the NYT that after Sunday night's Season 5 finale the wildly popular show seems to have lost its way, and to be losing faith with a growing number of its viewers. After two or three seasons of coherent and satisfying action, the show is spinning in place, stalling for time as it crawls toward an ending that will be more disappointing the longer it's delayed. Sound familiar? As with "Lost," there may be a blueprint, but it's not looking very sound. According to Hale, the escalating series of shocks in the season finale was a prime example of substituting sensation for imagination, busyness for drama. "Not content to kill off a mid-major character, the episode moved on to whipping girls, putting a major female character through an excruciatingly long, nude walk of shame and, in its closing seconds, assassinating a fan favorite who was one of the few wholly sympathetic figures in the show."
Amy Sullivan says that the problem is that it's incredibly hard to craft a epic series without getting necessarily bogged down in the middle installments. "Your protagonists are usually in some long-term predicament or up against an enemy who will keep winning until some resolution is reached in the finale," says Sullivan. "So the need to throw in a few shocking moments for the sake of surprise and to keep readers/audiences off-balance is understandable." According to Hale when you look at the overall framework, nearly all the characters are where they were when the season began. "The usurping Boltons are still in Winterfell; Sansa is still on the run; Arya is still hiding in Braavos; the dragon queen Daenerys Targaryen and the sly dwarf, Tyrion, are still marooned in Essos; the Lannisters still occupy the castle in King's Landing," concludes Hale. "This can be blamed on the show's semidependent relationship with Mr. Martin's novels, but viewers (like me) who haven't read the books don't care about that. The question is how much longer we'll care at all."
(Score: 1) by beernutz on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:44PM
Serious question: What would you rather watch?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:57PM
What would you rather watch?
I'm guessing, something that's abnormie garbage? ("Abby Someone, . . . Abby Normal." Young Frankenstein)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @08:04PM
Even "nothing" is a good choice. You don't have to watch anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @08:34PM
Baseball.
(Score: 1) by pinchy on Wednesday June 17 2015, @12:38AM
something like the rockford files , magnum PI or farscape
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:17PM
Aw snap. Now I got the Rockford Files theme song in my head.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @02:26AM
With three sisters and one bathroom, I got to play "game of thrones" every day....
( Hint: The telephone ringback number was very handy. It gave me enough time to hide in the closet before the phone started ringing... when Sis darts out to answer it, I slip from the closet right into the now abandoned throne room... There was always hell to pay for doing that, but I was already paying hell to a mess of plumbing that was about to rupture )