shortening the game
Game of Thrones' Showrunners Are Considering Shortened Final Seasons
I've got some bad news: Game of Thrones will not last forever, continuing on through our afterlife so that we can watch it for eternity on our little fluffy cloud couches in heaven. I know, I'm bummed too. So now the next question is: When will it end? Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have teased seven or eight seasons as the magic number, and now we may be closer to a more definitive answer.
According to Variety, Benioff and Weiss are currently considering two more seasons after the quickly approaching Season 6! But it comes with a catch. Seasons 7 and 8 would be shorter than the usual 10 episodes. The current idea is six episodes for Season 7 and seven episodes for Season 8, for a total of just 13 episodes to wrap things up. However, it should be noted that this is just a fledgling plan and nothing is set in stone. They've only started sketching out the next season of the series.
The 10-episodes-per-season plan has been nothing short of insanity, with months of writing, followed by shooting various episodes at different times over months in multiple locations , plus post production, which adds several additional months of work. Weiss told Variety that they're looking at a 12-to-14-month cycle to produce a single 10-episode season.
Well, there are a couple of ways to look at this. First, it would mean two more seasons of Game of Thrones. But that would also mean not the 20 episodes that some of us expected. What do you think?
Game of Thrones returns for Season 6 on Thursday, April 24 at 9pm on HBO.
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Jul 30, 2016
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Bottom line is, HBO has a history of ending it's shows before there is a major drop-off in quality, and I'm more than fine with that approach, as long as it has a satisfying conclusion, no fade to black nonsense or Lost type of endings.
I do not like the idea of splitting it up into two shorter seasons. Ugh. Like others have said, just do 13 together, and if that means we have to wait more like 18 months rather than a year for the final season, big deal.
But yeah, I think the show could be wrapped up in that amount of episodes. My initial reaction was that there was still way too much to wrap up, but when I thought about it, I realized most of the current storylines could rather easily be wrapped up this season. The wild cards are kind of Dorne and the Greyjoys, since I'm not at all sure where we're going with them - the fact that they've cast new Greyjoys kind of indicates they're expanding that story, but then again, the introduction of the new characters could just be characters they feel they need to wrap up the Iron Islands. As for Dorne, I just have no idea what's going on with them - could they already be considered wrapped up? Kinda, I guess.
Anyway, but everything else - the King's Landing Lannister-Tyrell-Sparrow stuff, Arya's storyline, Tyrion and Dany wrapping things up in Meereen, Jon coming back to life and dealing with what's left of this Night's Watch/Wilding conflict (plus discovering his true parentage), Sansa taking back the North (please God tell me that's what she'll be doing this season) - I can easily see all of that getting wrapped up this season. So the final 13 episodes could begin with Dany's return to Westeros and deal mostly with this apocalyptic war with the White Walkers, which seems sufficient.
I really hope Weiss and Benioff come to their senses here. They've already proven they care more about the story than most showrunners by admitting to only having 13 hours of real story left to tell. They could have kept that to themselves and given us 7 episodes of filler (hopefully not all at once) with us fans being none the wiser until it was too late.
PLEASE, David and D.B., give us the supersized final season we deserve!
then goodbye to this overrated show never to be re-watched by me ever again
Especially last season felt like that it didn't have the same quality as the previous seasons.
As much as I love the show and I'll miss it, hopefully they'll end it with season 7.
1) They already passed the books
2) It's an expansive shows. If it drops just a little bit of profits it would be a disaster
3) The kids are growing up and can't stay kids for long
4) The show is too high profile that its actors become a name and naturally their salaries will go up. See #2
How long did people think this show would last?
Make them count, guys!
I do find it hard to believe they can tell the rest of the story in 13 episodes after this season. They've got a lot of storylines to complete this season if that's the case.
And since the likely ending is (non spoiler, just a guess)
John Snow marries Danny and Tyrion will be the hand of the king thus bringing everyone together, you really see there isn't much needed to wrap things up.
Just get Danny to Westoros and have her dragons battle the ice zombie and call it a day.
As much as that ending would make me happy, I think that will never happen. George R.R. Martin is a cruel man (haha, only to his charcters, but you know what I mean), and I honestly cannot see him writing such a "happy ending."
If they're going to run out of story (which I doubt) then they should just make the final season shorter. The reason I doubt it is that we don't even know whether there will be 7 or 8 books yet. Martin must therefore have given them heaps of material. If the 7th book is the last then, being the climax of massive fantasy saga, it will presumably be even more dense with plot and massive moments than A Storm of Swords. So they should have plenty of story for twenty more episodes.
This is probably no that easy to do, for technical, contractual, and commercial reasons. A show that leaves the air for 2 years will take a hit, marketing- and audience-wise.
I'm thinking they've always needed 13 episodes/season but that's not possible (unless you don't mind a few deaths by exhaustion), and wanted the show to last 7 seasons, so they have this compromise with 13 epsiodes spread over 2 seasons.
#ADREAMOFSPRING
And TBQH I'm getting increasingly underimpressed by it all.
It's probably best that they wrap things up. Then when the series is finished they can go back and do the books more faithfully. But considering how popular the show has been, I would expect movie adaptations of the books.
That said I'd rather have 6 or 7 great eps than 10 meh ones so if they decide they can only do 6 or 7 so be it - why is this just now becoming a problem though? Is there not enough material for 2 full seasons? Are they afraid to deviate from the (supposedly) upcoming books too much?
To be fair, circumstances are not the same at all. In Breaking bad's case it was clearly AMC milking the show for as long as possible, and airing 1 already filmed production season over 2 TV seasons. They've done it with other shows as well.
In GoT's case, this is a case of the right number of episodes being to high for a regular production cycle, so they split it over 2 production cycles.
Why are you assuming this is cutting the number of episodes? I read here they were planning to do only 7 seasons, which in my book makes this annoucement a 3-episode increase.
The thing is, it's just not possible without pushing the airdates back a few months, and that is probably very difficult (problems with contracts, with airing the show at a different time of year, etc.)
If it really takes longer than 12 months to get everything properly done in time and if there are no possible improvements to be made (all that cut content must also count for some extra minutes...) towards smoothing out the process, then the obvious solution would be to have a slightly longer hiatus between each respective season.
If season 7 took 12-14 months to arrive rather than the usual ~10 months, people would most likely survive without mortal casualties. Plus there is always this added bonus in providing GRRM with more time to actually write.
Other shows have done or are doing it already: Marco Polo and (most likely) Sense8 on Netflix, or Banshee on Cinemax (which still resulted in cutting two episodes from the usual batch, alas).
Only six and seven episodes in a season after such a long wait would feel really lacking, and weird. Banshee is already in the process of breaking my heart with only 8 episodes to offer - it's such an odd sensation when you stop to consider that a 3rd or 4th episode of a season can already mark 50% of its entirety.
Other shows have done or are doing it already: Marco Polo and (most likely) Sense8 on Netflix, or Banshee on Cinemax (which still resulted in cutting two episodes from the usual batch, alas)."
That's not as easy. HBO has a yearlong schedule to consider, with other shows and movies etc. Netflix don't have these constraints, they can do whatever they want. And cutting the number of episode is the last thing D&D want for GoT.
Like I said, it's not just Netflix (being the epitome of flexibility) that has done something of the sort. Cinemax for Banshee, Starz for Spartacus and Outlander, etc. HBO could certainly come up with a different schedule for their most prized possession, if need be. The president of the network makes it clear on every occassion how much he would like for the show to go on.
If you can do it in 13 episode, you can finish it in one season with 1 or 2 extra episode over the usual 10.
I have a feeling the pressure of all this is starting to get to them, especially when there's no more source material for them to adapt. They never had this problem to deal with in seasons past....and now with so much expectations set....the pressure is on for them to deliver on something that's not even set in stone yet.....looks like it's tough days ahead for the showrunners!! Glad I'm not in their shoes right now....LOL
That is pretty shitty considering the vast amount of content that they have to work with. Are they that incompetent as writers that now they don't have any freaking clue how to fill 10 episodes. Seriously, if this was any other profession you lot would be fired. The even sadder fact is that you are likely going to bring people back to life that have absolutely no bearing on the overall story rather than shorten the cast and expand on their stories. So even with the shortened seasons, you are incapable to fill it with quality content.
I was skeptical about turning the books into movies as some rumors had. But after these morons get done with it, i kind of hope it does get turned into movies. Because these people are jokes.
I don't care how many episodes are left. I care that the story is probably told and completed in the epsiodes they do. I don't want to watch bad filler, I want every moment to be incredible. We are nearing the best part with winter almost here and the white walkers. I don't want important stuff cut or fast-tracked just to get it in within the aloted episode number but I also don't want tons of filler to stretch the story out forever.