Lots of points for production design: the costumes are uniformly magnificent, from the lowest peasant to the highest king. The sets get a tad monotonous after a while: big, colonnaded halls of dark beige and grey and lots of oversized statuary, but even those can be breathtaking in their own way. The CG work just gets better and better with each season: tighter, cleaner, more layered and intricate. Many of the performances are quite good, even after six years, and the photography is outstanding.
That's the good stuff.
The bad? OK, I"m halfway through season 6, binge-watching the DVDs, and the sins of the series are becoming so obvious that the writers are in real need of a walk of atonement. Having not read the books, I don't know how closely they're adhering to them at this point — or if indeed they even are anymore, since I understand much of this season was planned in expectation of the next book which Martin has yet to finish. But increasingly, each episode is a combination of (1) some characters wandering around the countryside in the snow, (2) some characters getting killed off for no particular reason, and (3) one really big CG-laden scene somewhere towards the end to keep you coming back to see what happens next.
My biggest complaint with GOT S1 was that it felt like the old TV show "Dynasty" with a lot of fur costumes: lots of rich, powerful people going after each other in a somewhat pointless way. S2-4 gave it a bit of a rise above that, but S5 and (thus far) S6 have almost completely reverted to type: Fantasy Soap Opera with Furs. At this point, I'm not sure why the show has lasted this long: the story lines seem to be running on auto-pilot. There hasn't been much with the same visceral impact as the Red Wedding. By now I would have hoped to see at least something of where the series hopes to wind up, but instead it's just wandering in the snow.
I understand that it's been contracted for two more seasons. I'm starting to wonder if any of the major characters will even be left by then, that perhaps they're bringing it to a close because no one will be left alive to sit on the stupid Iron Throne. That would be almost as disappointing as the ending of LOST, but at this point, certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
That's the good stuff.
The bad? OK, I"m halfway through season 6, binge-watching the DVDs, and the sins of the series are becoming so obvious that the writers are in real need of a walk of atonement. Having not read the books, I don't know how closely they're adhering to them at this point — or if indeed they even are anymore, since I understand much of this season was planned in expectation of the next book which Martin has yet to finish. But increasingly, each episode is a combination of (1) some characters wandering around the countryside in the snow, (2) some characters getting killed off for no particular reason, and (3) one really big CG-laden scene somewhere towards the end to keep you coming back to see what happens next.
My biggest complaint with GOT S1 was that it felt like the old TV show "Dynasty" with a lot of fur costumes: lots of rich, powerful people going after each other in a somewhat pointless way. S2-4 gave it a bit of a rise above that, but S5 and (thus far) S6 have almost completely reverted to type: Fantasy Soap Opera with Furs. At this point, I'm not sure why the show has lasted this long: the story lines seem to be running on auto-pilot. There hasn't been much with the same visceral impact as the Red Wedding. By now I would have hoped to see at least something of where the series hopes to wind up, but instead it's just wandering in the snow.
I understand that it's been contracted for two more seasons. I'm starting to wonder if any of the major characters will even be left by then, that perhaps they're bringing it to a close because no one will be left alive to sit on the stupid Iron Throne. That would be almost as disappointing as the ending of LOST, but at this point, certainly not outside the realm of possibility.