Game of Thrones Season 5 Ep 1 (TV Show Review)

The finale of Game of Thrones Season 4 came at the end of a rather troubling season in general, with the writers making some really questionable departures from the source material and the directors being a bit too convinced of their own infallibility with respect to the final product. Still, as such things go, the finale wasn’t all that bad and it ended on a fairly positive note for many of the arcs that it touched, such as where Arya ends up after she disposes off of The Hound and sets out for herself, or even Tyrion killing his father and Shae both, for betraying hmm in the worst ways possible.

And this all brings us to season 5, which began this past Sunday, and generated an immense amount of controversy from the get go, namely that the first four episodes had been leaked together from sources that HBO had sent them to for review purposes. Hardly generates confidence, that. Either way, the season 5 premiere is of the grim and somber variety. Nothing really happens in this episode other than he viewers getting to touch base with some of the storylines and seeing what consequences past events have wrought on the world of Westeros and beyond. The characters are trying to find their feet once again, and moving forward, things should be… interesting.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 10 (TV Show Review)

And so it all ends. After flip-flopping with quality and content so much in the past nine weeks, we are finally at the point where we see the ending to yet another seaosn of HBO’s runaway hit Game of Thrones, the show that has apparently made fantasy cool for television viewers, finally, if some people are to believed. It may have, at that, but the just-finished season has had plenty of problems as far as I’m concerned. Still, I’ll admit that the finale beat most of my expectations in the end and it was actually half-way decent.

The finale is titled “The Children“, which is fairly apt given that is all about the children, sons and daughters fighting against their legacies and their parents. In this entire season, a lot of resentment has been brewing up between the Lannister children and that comes to a devastating close here. Plus we see Arya’s arc end for this year and get a chance to get really excited about what’s coming up with her. Then there’s the whole thing with the aimlessly wandering Stark and Reed kids, who finally run into their mythic and cliched wizard-who-knows-it-all. Across the Narrow Sea we find that the Mother of Dragons doesn’t have control over her children after all and then Beyond The Wall see that Jon Snow just got an opportunity of a lifetime twice over.

Note: This is a review with major spoilers from the finale. You have been warned.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 9 (TV Show Review)

In one more week, HBO’s smash-hit Game of Thrones will ends its fourth season. As might be expected, the new season has seen the highest viewership numbers of any of the previous seasons, by a considerable margin. As much as the show’s popularity might have increased however, the success only seems to have made some elements of the show worse, while others remain plateaued. No prizes as to what has gotten worse, if you’ve read my reviews. Thankfully, the penultimate episode of the season seems to have escaped that particular disappointing element.

Now, if only things had remained like that. Much as with Season 2’s penultimate episode Blackwater, “The Watchers on The Wall” is an episode focused on a single event: the first battle of the Wall between the armies of Mance Ryder and the Night’s Watch. Start to finish, we see the full cast of the Wall, and that is that, making this episode the one with the shortest primary cast list, for none of the other high and mighty of the show make even a cursory appearance. At first I was all for it, but as the episode dragged on, I got bored and bored, and the ending proved to be unsatisfactory.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 6 (TV Show Review)

The previous episodes of Game of Thrones season 4 have all been travelogues in that they have attempted to touch base with a myriad number of characters scattered throughout Westeros and across the Narrow Sea, and so there has been distinct lack of cohesion of the story. When six-seven storylines are going on at the same time in each episode, it can become quite a task to keep everything straight, and to follow along, especially if you happen to be a new entrant to the show (not recommended!). And the quality of these five episodes has definitely been all over the place as well, for a myriad number of reasons.

This week’s episode, “The Laws of God and Men“, thankfully tells a much more focused story and it moves the larger story forward significantly, much more than the previous episodes did in my opinion. We first meet with Stannis and Ser Davos as they sail to Braavos to secure the aid of the Iron Bank. We also meet up with Daenerys as she “learns to govern” in Meereen instead of continuing her conquest. Then we are in the North with Yara Greyjoy and her chosen Ironborn as they go to Ramsay Snow’s base at the Dreadfort to rescue Theon. And then finally we are in King’s Landing, where Tyrion is finally led to trial for the murder of Joffrey. Lots happened this week and thankfully almost all of it was good.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 5 (TV Show Review)

Last week’s episode of Game of Thrones Season 4 was very much a downer for me. And also quite possibly one of the few episodes of the show that I really don’t like, for a variety of reasons. It contains some of the worst of the show so far, and it continues on blithely as it ignores its own faults. And that is a dangerous road to take, if the showrunners can’t spot or acknowledge the mistakes they are making. A large part of that has had to with the show’s glorification of violence against women, although often the show also struggles under the weight of its army of characters, and keeping all the various plotlines straight is a tough job at the best of times.

This week’s episodes moves the story somewhat forward but given the fact that we are now half done with the new season, the show lacks excitement and zest. What happens in this episode is still the movement and arrangement of the various chess pieces in play. The Lannisters, the Tyrells, they are all consolidating their hold on power, even as the Mother of Dragons is set to sail for King’s Landing (not quite!) and the adventures of the surviving Stark children still continue in the North, blithely so. This was all just too much filler this week.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 4 (TV Show Review)

I started off my review last week by talking about the show’s preference for shock and awe with respect to violence against and the sexualisation of women. Game of Thrones does not have a good track record of that at all, and this season has shown that the showrunners are definitely not going to shy away from that. In fact, they are going to double down. This is quite puzzling indeed and one of the reasons why I’m never able to enjoy an episode as much as I want. That was true for this week’s episode as well, and I’m afraid that I don’t see this improving in the near future.

This week’s episode “Oathkeeper” is basically the calm before the storm. It lacks any significant OMFG moments right up until the final seconds and even then it isn’t really enough. Basically many of the different stories are moving forward and we suffer them all in silence. There were some good bits such as the emotional scenes between Brienne and Jamie, and some not-so-good bits such as Daenarys once again basking in the adoration of slaves, playing into the whole “white savour of coloured people” trope. All I felt after the end of the episode was “meh, next”.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 3 (TV Show Review)

Shock and awe has been one of the core methods used by the writers of Game of Thrones since the show began. Of course, the books that the show is based on have plenty of that, but the show has never made an effort to step around them, best as I can tell talking with various people about it since I’ve hardly read any of the books. After all, in the show premiere we had an incest scene and later on in the season we had a character explaining his motives while training two female whores and hardly anything was left to the viewer imagination. Rape, violent murders and more have been a staple of the show and it looks like the new season is proudly continuing that tradition.

In the previous episode that aired last week, King Joffrey Baratheon was poisoned at the moment of his Wedding Feast, thus ending the brief reign of one of the worst Kings that Westeros has seen to date. The dust is still settling after all that and much of the new episode from yesterday hinges upon the fallout of that massive event. “Breaker of Chains” is all about how old traditions are being subverted at every turn and it reminds us as well that the armies of Daenerys Targaryen are continuing their march on Westeros, breaking the literal chains of slavery across the Narrow Sea.

Note: Some spoilers from this episode are mentioned in the review.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 2 (TV Show Review)

 Season 4 of HBO’s television adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s epic (political) fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire began on an interesting note. The previous season had ended on a very grim note as yet another player in the War of the Five Kings was brutally murdered, and the reign of his family and its political prospects all came crashing down. Now, the Starks are no more and the Lannisters are preeminent since they have a King on the throne who is about to be married, they have a Master of the Coin and a King’s Hand of the family, and they are about to have their Regent-Queen married off as well to further secure their power. But that’s not all that’s happening in Westeros since there is still Stannis Baratheon and his armies, along with Houses Greyjoy and Bolton, and more players yet in the ultimate game of power.

Where the first episode of the new season was meant to touch base with many of these characters, the second episode this Sunday went further and turned out a pretty damn amazing story that saw an end to a character I’ve long hated. Very cathartic I tell you. At the same time, we finally touch base with what the Boltons are doing following their betrayals last season and what has become of their… prisoner. Plus we see Bran Stark and the Reeds again, in a rather scary sequence altogether. The new episode lacked some excitement in the first half, but the second half was pretty good, if strung out a little.

Game of Thrones Season 4 Ep 1 (TV Show Review)

Three years ago, HBO changed the course of science fiction and fantasy programming with its television adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s first novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, bringing A Game of Thrones to people’s screens. The books had long enjoyed a decent popularity but with the television adaptation, things suddenly kicked into high gear. For a series that had been called unfilmable, HBO seems to have done alright, and now the show is in its fourth season as of this past Sunday evening, bringing the ostensibly second half of the third book to the screen, and it exemplifies both the best and the worst of the show (and the books).

I’ve never read any of the books, nor do I have any inclination to. They are simply too humongous, and when I tried to read the first book, I lost interest somewhere before the half-mark. Plus it takes Martin 4-6 years to write a book, and I just don’t have that kind of patience. So the television show it is, which I’ve been watching since it premiered. The new season and its premiere take us back to Westeros, but a changed Westeros, where the Starks as a family are no more and the Lannisters are ascendant. The deadly dance for ultimate power continues and we touch base with a significant number of characters, to learn what they have been up to, and how they’ve all changed.