Game of Thrones

[snepp]

I've watched every Trek episode....multiple times.

 

 

Love Firefly.

 

 

I am geek.

[Craig Arko]

Firefly was good. And at least they had Serenity as a follow-up. Another series I thought died young was Terra Nova.

 

For now Walking Dead and Falling Skies are what I follow. Who, of course, and it would be nice if Torchwood gets some kind of update.

 

And I still hold out hope for Agents of Shield.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Man, I was so disappointed that they weren't able to finish the story arc started in the fourth season. The show was cancelled at the wrong time and the network forced the producers to ham-handedly end the series with one of the worst finale episodes ever put on television.

 

 

I wasn't watching it when it came out, so I missed most of this... I'm a bit surprised though that it didn't do well. I started watching and from start, right up until the end, I was always looking forward to the next one... Season 4 struck me as a 'tie up as many loose ends as possible' type thing.

[TheLeviathan]

For now Walking Dead

 

If you haven't read the source material avoid it like a zombie plague. It's VASTLY superior to the show, so if you enjoy it now, don't ruin it for yourself thinking about what might have been.

[TheLeviathan]

Season 5 continues this show's excellence as pretty much the best TV has to offer.  And we're starting to see some things in the show that have been dragged out needlessly in the books.  (Namely, the meeting in Mereen)

[Willihammer]

Spoiler alert!

[TheLeviathan]

Edited, sorry, I'm that guy with spoilers sometimes.  Mostly because the whole concept of spoiler alerts annoy me.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I haven't seen all of them this season, but what I have seen is diverging quite a bit from the books.  I have some pretty good ideas on how Winds of Winter will play out for that reason.

[gunnarthor]

I'm not enjoying this season nearly as much as the previous ones.  I think the showrunners have had trouble adapting without the source material and it feels more like a predictable TV show rather than a unique show it was the first few years.  I don't know if they could have telegraphed the Shireen thing any more obviously had they just had Melisandre stand behind her with lighter fluid.  The coincidences keep adding up - Jamie and Bronn getting to Dorne just as the sand snakes attack?  Brienne running into Sansa at the inn?  Dany being at the slave pit Jorah was at? Pretty weak. 

 

And I've been one to defend the show against misogyny charges in the past but what happened to Sansa is horrible and wasn't in the books and the excuse for it - she's taking Jenny Poole's place doesn't hold up. And last night they had 5 minutes of nothing just to show us a naked Tyene Sand - in another event that wasn't in the books. 

 

I still like the show but it's not as good as it was.

[TheLeviathan]

 

 

And I've been one to defend the show against misogyny charges in the past but what happened to Sansa is horrible and wasn't in the books and the excuse for it - she's taking Jenny Poole's place doesn't hold up. And last night they had 5 minutes of nothing just to show us a naked Tyene Sand - in another event that wasn't in the books. 

 

I still like the show but it's not as good as it was.

 

I agree about the handling of the Sansa scene.  (The subsequent producer explanation only made it worse)  They seemed to be building her in a different direction only to swerve back to the same problem.  But to be fair - Martin is to blame for that.  His Sansa is every bit the incompetent victim the show's is.  That's a source material problem.

 

And much of the misogyny is also source material related, right down to the character that was supposed to be a central protagonist being turned into a hapless ruler who can't keep her stuff together.  (Dany is by far the books' biggest let-down as time goes on)

 

But yeah, you have a point with the coincidental run-ins, but to the show's credit they have also cleaned up the Cersei/Tyrell storyline in a much more sensible way than the books.  They've also kept Stannis and his agenda in the north much more focused.  

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

I'm not enjoying this season nearly as much as the previous ones.  I think the showrunners have had trouble adapting without the source material and it feels more like a predictable TV show rather than a unique show it was the first few years.  I don't know if they could have telegraphed the Shireen thing any more obviously had they just had Melisandre stand behind her with lighter fluid.  The coincidences keep adding up - Jamie and Bronn getting to Dorne just as the sand snakes attack?  Brienne running into Sansa at the inn?  Dany being at the slave pit Jorah was at? Pretty weak. 

 

And I've been one to defend the show against misogyny charges in the past but what happened to Sansa is horrible and wasn't in the books and the excuse for it - she's taking Jenny Poole's place doesn't hold up. And last night they had 5 minutes of nothing just to show us a naked Tyene Sand - in another event that wasn't in the books. 

 

I still like the show but it's not as good as it was.

 

Pretty much all of that diverges from the books.  HBO definitely conflates some characters for the purposes of production, but that also kind of tells me that Sansa ends up in the North for Winds of Winter and Jamie/Bronn were headed to Dorne as well.  In the books Sansa never left Baelish and the Lanister girl lost an ear in that fight with the Sand snakes.  They wrote out all of Tyrion running into Raegar Targarian as well. 

 

[TheLeviathan]

 

They wrote out all of Tyrion running into Raegar Targarian as well. 

 

Something we should all commend them for.  That storyline is needlessly dumb.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Perhaps so, but I assumed it would play a bigger role in Winds of Winter.  If it's being written out here, then I suspect it dies out quickly in the books too.   that said...

 

 

SPOILER

 

 

They did keep the part about going through old Valeryia.  Jorah and Tyrion didn't do that in the books.

[Brock Beauchamp]

As Levi said, the show has character problems partially because the books have character problems.

 

The further I get into the television series, the more down on the books I become. The first novel was an absolutely fantastic fantasy novel. The third was also very, very good... After that, the books are largely mediocre-to-good. Once you get past the intrigue and betrayal, you start to realize that most of the characters are a combination of evil and inept and never learn from their mistakes... Except maybe Dani, who actually regresses as a character and goes from very likable to "will someone kill her already?"

 

Arya and Jaime are the best characters by a mile, simply because they actually progress as human beings. Tyrion is also fun but he never really stops being Tyrion... And that's okay because he's a fun character. The rest are interchangeable and Martin just keeps adding more interchangeable characters to the mix. Even formerly interesting characters like Cersei become stale after they just keep doing the same tired crap over and over again.

 

The show is better than the source material but I'm skeptical even that can hold up if they keep making bone-headed moves that shuffle around characters but don't improve them meaningfully, not to mention they really need to stop raping major characters for no reason other than titillation of juvenile audiences.

[TheLeviathan]

The depth and nuance of his books are absolutely amazing.  It's a shame, though, that I feel like the books devolve into a bunch of red herrings.  Every time you feel like you're marching closer to the conclusion, you take 8 or 9 steps backwards.  At some point, even if it's a lurch, we need to lurch forward towards the ending.  

 

The books, to me, missed a central idea with all storytelling at some point:  We call it a climax in a movie/book for a reason - the best ones build to the payoff.  In his third book Martin was building to an awesome climax.  And then we stalled.  Maybe even slid backward.  The TV show can't do that and they are smartly avoiding that trap.  The books forgot about that central narrative and it has harmed the product.

 

Those out there defending the books are doing so on the hope that all the narrative has been purposefully building to a core story, but I really don't think it is.  Martin lost his original vision in a sea of his own imagination.  I would bet dollars to doughnuts that if he concludes the novels at some point it would take the heights of stubbornness to say the show didn't tell this story better.  Even if it missed a few skips off the path here and there.  (As interesting and rich as those skips can be at times)

[gunnarthor]

 

As Levi said, the show has character problems partially because the books have character problems.

 

The further I get into the television series, the more down on the books I become. The first novel was an absolutely fantastic fantasy novel. The third was also very, very good... After that, the books are largely mediocre-to-good. Once you get past the intrigue and betrayal, you start to realize that most of the characters are a combination of evil and inept and never learn from their mistakes... Except maybe Dani, who actually regresses as a character and goes from very likable to "will someone kill her already?"

 

Arya and Jaime are the best characters by a mile, simply because they actually progress as human beings. Tyrion is also fun but he never really stops being Tyrion... And that's okay because he's a fun character. The rest are interchangeable and Martin just keeps adding more interchangeable characters to the mix. Even formerly interesting characters like Cersei become stale after they just keep doing the same tired crap over and over again.

 

The show is better than the source material but I'm skeptical even that can hold up if they keep making bone-headed moves that shuffle around characters but don't improve them meaningfully, not to mention they really need to stop raping major characters for no reason other than titillation of juvenile audiences.

I actually disagree with you quite a bit here (not on the rape thing though).  I think the books have done a pretty good job keeping characters both interesting and true to form for over 4000 pages.  There have been some mistakes but they are overblown (and a lot more prevalent in the TV show).

 

I don't have a problem with a book series continuing to expand and add as it goes forward (that makes a lot of sense to me, actually), which is one of the reasons I didn't like the exclusion of Arianna Martell or the (likely) Blackfyre pretender with Griff on the TV show (even though i understood why).  I know a TV show can't have all the stuff in the books but the dumbing down of the northern politics and the stuff at the wall hurts.  That was some of the most fun stuff in the books.

[Brock Beauchamp]

The characters remain true to form to a fault... That's kinda my point. We're 5,000 pages into the series and there are only four characters I want to read about at this point (Jaime, Arya, Tyrion, Jon). In a cast of 20+ major characters, that's a really low percentage. Martin has led the reader down too many dead end streets or mired his characters in repetitive behavior that disengages the reader. I don't care how awesome Sansa becomes in book six or seven because I've spent 4,500 pages wishing horrible death to befall her. There's no series of events that will bring her back from that. Dani isn't far behind. Same with Cersei. Caitlin Stark. Etc. etc. etc. and I just can't bring myself to care about people like Bran or Rikon. I could go on for half an hour about the characters I don't care about in the series.

[TheLeviathan]

 

 I could go on for half an hour about the characters I don't care about in the series.

 

You should, it'd be fun to assign how many pages about them you had to read.  Let's start with Arys Oakheart and then Areo Hotah - we can all agree those were catastrophic wastes of time right?

 

I'm sure we can work our way up to Cat Stark.

[gunnarthor]

 

The characters remain true to form to a fault... That's kinda my point. We're 5,000 pages into the series and there are only four characters I want to read about at this point (Jaime, Arya, Tyrion, Jon). In a cast of 20+ major characters, that's a really low percentage. Martin has led the reader down too many dead end streets or mired his characters in repetitive behavior that disengages the reader. I don't care how awesome Sansa becomes in book six or seven because I've spent 4,500 pages wishing horrible death to befall her. There's no series of events that will bring her back from that. Dani isn't far behind. Same with Cersei. Caitlin Stark. Etc. etc. etc. and I just can't bring myself to care about people like Bran or Rikon. I could go on for half an hour about the characters I don't care about in the series.

Well, if there are only 4 characters you want to read about there's not really much to say.  I disagree, I find nearly all of the characters interesting and am glad for the "dead end streets" or tangents they've led us on even if most of the characters won't be vital to the end story.  I'm honestly surprised that someone who has read all those books is only interested in a handful of the characters.

 

I'm not sure what "repetitive behavior" you are referring to either. 

[diehardtwinsfan]

I think to an extent, dead end characters are necessary for the plot.  HBO has done a decent job getting rid of some of them.  That's part of the interesting thing with this season as you are seeing who are the dead end characters before Winds of Winter comes out. 

 

speaking of which, that's sounding like Spring of 2016. 

[TheLeviathan]

I think to an extent, dead end characters are necessary for the plot. 

 

Yes they are, that's true. But hundreds of pages that don't advance the narrative are not. AFFC was basically a bunch of lame POVs that Martin manipulated because he wanted to world build in a few new corners of his world and the rest of the story suffered. He admitted in his own intro that things got out of control.

 

The guy lost focus and it became pretty obvious.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I'm not sure what "repetitive behavior" you are referring to either. 

Well, for example, Arya roamed around aimlessly for nearly two entire books. Martin could have edited out roughly 200 pages and the reader wouldn't have noticed or cared about it. That should be a red flag that storytelling is taking a backseat to world-building, which is never a good thing.

[Mike Sixel]

I can't watch this year, because unlike my kids.....well, I can't watch this year yet.....

 

but my 17 year old's thought is this:

 

too much plot (talking) not enough characters dying.

 

On the books, I don't mind the proliferation of characters, but 1000000 pages on a dude that is just going to die, and not advance the story at all? Blech,

 

And, I mostly agree with Brock, the lack of growth in the characters is disappointing. That said, the events in the book only span a few years.......and they are mostly trying to survive, so it is hard to grow much when you are already in your 30s and only a couple years pass.

 

I also agree that Dany could be unwise (lack of experience, youth, etc), but not be weak like she starts to come across in the books. I'm hopeful her experiences at the end of book 5 change that.

 

I still contend, with all they misogyny, this is largely a series about women ruling the world (either directly or behind the scenes).

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I also agree that Dany could be unwise (lack of experience, youth, etc), but not be weak like she starts to come across in the books. I'm hopeful her experiences at the end of book 5 change that.

Absolutely. Unwise is one thing; petulance and whining is something else entirely.

 

In a cast chock full of unlikable characters, Martin needs to throw his readers a bone now and again. Give us someone we want to see win. This isn't a biopic about Nazi Germany, it's a friggin' fantasy series.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I still contend, with all they misogyny, this is largely a series about women ruling the world (either directly or behind the scenes).

 

I hope so.  But it's also hard to see how there is any story at all if Sansa isn't the archetype for "Stupid girl too busy being ruled by emotions" and the host of ridiculous mistakes she made throughout.  Cat fits the same.  

 

I want to believe that it ends with that theme but it's hard to overlook just how bad the portrayls of some women have been to this point.  (Book and show)

[Mike Sixel]

Sansa is what, 13-15 in the books, and all her life been raised and led to believe she will be a queen (or something like one), and taught all the womanly "arts" (almost all.....). I guess I don't see why having her be that archetype is bad, especially if you get to contrast that with Arya and all the schemer women in the story.

 

The mistakes were made by her parents, not preparing her for all the politics. But then, maybe they thought their kids would just be in the North forever, and not have to worry about that (which seems hard to believe).

 

And yes, that might be hope more than belief on the women thing by me.

[gunnarthor]

 

Sansa is what, 13-15 in the books, and all her life been raised and led to believe she will be a queen (or something like one), and taught all the womanly "arts" (almost all.....). I guess I don't see why having her be that archetype is bad, especially if you get to contrast that with Arya and all the schemer women in the story.

 

The mistakes were made by her parents, not preparing her for all the politics. But then, maybe they thought their kids would just be in the North forever, and not have to worry about that (which seems hard to believe).

 

And yes, that might be hope more than belief on the women thing by me.

Agreed, in the books Sansa will be fine - and I think she has grown.  Martin has said the death of Lady was supposed to make Sansa off kilter for a while.  She's learning how to play the game of thrones in the Eyrie and will end up killing Littlefinger.

 

In the TV show, they just keep making her the damsel in distress.  

[TheLeviathan]

Agreed, in the books Sansa will be fine - and I think she has grown. Martin has said the death of Lady was supposed to make Sansa off kilter for a while. She's learning how to play the game of thrones in the Eyrie and will end up killing Littlefinger.

 

In the TV show, they just keep making her the damsel in distress.

 

Sansa hasn't even been competent enough to be the damsel. She has directly led to many of the most devastating consequences to her family in the entire series. She was selfish and you can blame her youth if you want....but by all means point to the competent female lead in the series for me. (Not flawless, but just one woman who isn't obnoxious or stupid)

 

Open question for you too mike.

[gunnarthor]

 

Sansa hasn't even been competent enough to be the damsel. She has directly led to many of the most devastating consequences to her family in the entire series. She was selfish and you can blame her youth if you want....but by all means point to the competent female lead in the series for me. (Not flawless, but just one woman who isn't obnoxious or stupid)

Open question for you too mike.

In the book or the TV series?

In the books Arya is everyone's favorite character.  Brienne is a fan favorite taking on the noble knight role.  Cercei isn't stupid - she's reckless and lacks wisdom but is a solid villain.  Sansa has grown in the books and her biggest mistake happened in the first book.  And obviously Dani is a much more complex and well rounded character in the books, neither obnoxious or stupid. Asha is the most competent person on the Iron Isles.  I think those are the main female POV characters with the exception of Cat (who I thought was a bad character but might hold promise as an undead zombie), Arienne Martell, who I thought was a nice addition but we haven't seen enough of her and Melissandre who only had one chapter but is clearly an important figure.  

 

In the show, I do think the characters have suffered some - Asha is basically gone, so is Arienne.  Dani is not as complex (although in fairness to the writers, it's hard to do her storylines justice).  Cat was actually better on TV then the books (good actress).  Arya isn't too bad, again, she has a pretty hard story line to go with but I think the series is doing it as well as practical.  Sansa is off the rails.  Melissandre is perfect.  In the TV show, Olenna Tyrell may be the most competent woman the last few seasons.

[Mike Sixel]

 

Sansa hasn't even been competent enough to be the damsel. She has directly led to many of the most devastating consequences to her family in the entire series. She was selfish and you can blame her youth if you want....but by all means point to the competent female lead in the series for me. (Not flawless, but just one woman who isn't obnoxious or stupid)

Open question for you too mike.

 

Well, there aren't many competent men either.....

 

But, Melissandre basically controls one king, Cerci survived her naked walk and will rule very differently I'd guess, Asha is the most competent person on the Isles (did they abandon that family totally? don't answer, I haven't seen any of this year on tv), Dani was great, then weak, she'll be back again as a leader I'd think.

 

I don't know what will happen with Sansa. I don't know who/how the Martell's will rule, but they are pretty competent.

 

The basic structure of the narrative is that everyone is flawed in some way, women and men. Face it, ruling kingdoms is hard work.