A Game of Thrones - TV Show Discussion Thread

[Tuberski]

Officially picked up for Season 3.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/04/10/game-of-thrones-renewed-3/

You would think season 4 is inevitable, since it's going to take 2 seasons to cover A Storm of Swords.

ACK!

[Wezil]

HBO has been known to axe shows prematurely. Let's hope this one gets a full run.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I was thinking about this and there is potential for disaster in the sense that Season 3 and 4 will come from Storm of Swords and likely the plodding and lack of (much) movement A Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons will be combined and made into 3 (or, God forbid, 4) seasons. Seasons 5, 6, and 7 could be ridiculously slow without much plot resolution causing viewership to slowly abandon the show.

That and think of all the new characters they'll be introducing in Season 5. Though maybe they can push back the introduction of Dorne or the Iron Islands plotline to Season 6.

[Dinner]

HBO has been known to axe shows prematurely. Let's hope this one gets a full run.

I'm still pissed off at how they axed Rome a full year early.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I was thinking about this and there is potential for disaster in the sense that Season 3 and 4 will come from Storm of Swords and likely the plodding and lack of (much) movement A Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons will be combined and made into 3 (or, God forbid, 4) seasons. Seasons 5, 6, and 7 could be ridiculously slow without much plot resolution causing viewership to slowly abandon the show.

That and think of all the new characters they'll be introducing in Season 5. Though maybe they can push back the introduction of Dorne or the Iron Islands plotline to Season 6.

I suspect that a lot of AFfC and ADwD will just go away. In particular, I'm guessing that Dany's storyline will be sped up quite a bit and things like the internal events with the Maesters and some running about up north will be compressed or eliminated. The showrunners have demonstrated pretty good instincts on what to cut from the books (though, what they replace it with is a bit more suspect...)

[Wezil]

I'm still pissed off at how they axed Rome a full year early.

Don't forget what the dirt worshipers did to Deadwood.

[Guynemer]

I was thinking about this and there is potential for disaster in the sense that Season 3 and 4 will come from Storm of Swords and likely the plodding and lack of (much) movement A Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons will be combined and made into 3 (or, God forbid, 4) seasons. Seasons 5, 6, and 7 could be ridiculously slow without much plot resolution causing viewership to slowly abandon the show.

That and think of all the new characters they'll be introducing in Season 5. Though maybe they can push back the introduction of Dorne or the Iron Islands plotline to Season 6.

Really don't think it'll be that bad. Season 4 will probably be the last half of 3, with the start of 4/5, and season 5 will be the rest of 4/5.

[Guynemer]

Don't forget what the dirt worshipers did to Deadwood.

Hoopleheaded ********ers.

[Dinner]

I was thinking about this and there is potential for disaster in the sense that Season 3 and 4 will come from Storm of Swords and likely the plodding and lack of (much) movement A Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons will be combined and made into 3 (or, God forbid, 4) seasons. Seasons 5, 6, and 7 could be ridiculously slow without much plot resolution causing viewership to slowly abandon the show.

That and think of all the new characters they'll be introducing in Season 5. Though maybe they can push back the introduction of Dorne or the Iron Islands plotline to Season 6.

That is a real problem. GRRM introduced so many new characters he has to spend a huge amount of time keeping up with each one which, while it enriches the story and makes the world feel more real, would be hard to replicate in TV format without getting boring. They may have to perform so triage to cut the extra lines down to just the most important ones.

[-Jrabbit]

Turns out Dinklage's GoT contract with HBO is for six years.

FWIW.

[joncha]

I think the most logical option would be to combine books 4 and 5, then split them chronologically into seasons 5 and 6. It's what Martin should have done with the books in the first place.

[Guynemer]

Not sure that would necessarily require two entire seasons, but I could be wrong. Do it in the 1.5 seasons after the post-you-know-what portion of book three takes up the first part of season 4.

[Jon Miller]

It would be easier to know once GRR finishes, but we will be lucky to get the next book out before the end of season 5.

They could start doing 'half seasons'?

JM

[Dinner]

A Game of Thrones - 1996
A Clash of Kings - 1998
A Storm of Sword - 2000
A Feast for Crows - 2005
A Dance with Dragons - 2011

So he was averaging one book every two years at the beginning but it took him 11 years to come up with the last two books (5 years and 6 years respectively). That means he's getting slower not faster with age. And if he keeps the trend up it will take 7 years to get the sixth book though 5.5 might be a better guess. Still, series long his average is a respectable 3.4 years so maybe he'll pick up the pace.

That would mean the soonest we could expect the sixth boom is the end of 2013, the average would be mid 2015, the most recent average (average of the two books produced in the last 11 years) would be mid to late 2016 while the recent trend would be 2018. The good news is he supposedly had half a dozen chapters written in late 2010 so he's most likely well along with things by now though with all the consulting on the HBO series and with him writing other stuff as well I'm not sure how much recent progress he has made.

This would mean HBO has material through season 5 airing in 2015 (but recorded in late 2014) though if book six isn't ready by late 2014 (and it probably won't be) then the series will be in trouble.

[Jon Miller]

It means that going to 'half seasons' or not cutting would be best:

season 1 (2011) book 1
season 2 (2012) book 2
season 3( 2013) book 3
season 4 (2014) book 3.5
season 5 (2015) short 4+5
season 6 (2016) short 4+5
release of book 6 in 2015
season 7 (2017) book 6 or even short 4+5
?season 8? (2018) ?book 6.5? or even starting book 6
release of book 7 2018
movie/miniseries of book 7 in 2019/2020

I think that GRR might be driven more by HBO than his fans. I think that short (8 episode) seasons could work well for seasons 5/6/7 (and maybe 4) (and maybe, maybe 8).

I haven't watched any of it yet.

JM