Is it me, or has the show's general quality diminished?

[Stag_legion]

I was rewatching the first season and it struck me that the show was better in the earlier seasons (especially the first), and not only when it comes to narrative but also with the writing and acting. Its ironic that the show's budget has increased greatly since the first season but the quality has lessened. Anyone else agree?

[Wyman Manderly's Meat Pies]

I agree.

[LittleMissTyrell]

Amen to that

[Damorian]

Regrettably, agree.

The shoddy Dorne stuff this year has brought me to that point of view, alas.

[Ritter]

Yes. It has been a crash and burn this season. Notice that this is also the season where the writers have decided to take the most liberties when it comes to sticking with the source material... Anyway, after last night's episode, I think it's pretty much confirmed that season five has been the worst season of GoT so far.

Also the Dorne scenes are making me cringe so much. Especially that fight scene last night. Some of the worst choreography I have seen from this show. Reminded me of a power rangers fight sequence but worse.

[Jon Starkgaryen]

I have to agree, a shame because it introduced me to the books.

[midi]

I disagree. You are just butthurt about Dorne in this week's episode. Almost all the other stuff is still as solid as it ever was, or more so (especially Arya in the House of B&W). It's not like last season had exactly fully stellar storylines: Yara's rescue attempt of Theon comes to mind.. they just can't write rescue plots well.

Looking back after the whole series has aired this will probably be one of the best seasons.

[Red Tiger]

...See for me it's like this. When season 5 hits, it hits HAAAARD, harder than previous seasons. But when it misses, it's cringe-inducingly bad. So I would say this season is very shaky.

[AlpenglowMemories]

It's a bit of a mixed bag.

There's been flaws there from the very beginning, namely the lack of subtlety and the aversion to really investing in the complex psychology of the characters. But, over time, the how has made improvements, most notably with the visual effects and set productions. Season one looks a bit of an eyesore in comparison. There's been solid performances throughout. The writing has suffered over the years, often abandoning the nuance of the book for more easily digestible, generic storytelling. Direction has always been a mixture: we've had good directors (Slovis, Van Patten, Sakharov), average ones (MacLaren), mediocre ones (Minahan, Graves).

I think it's mostly been a decent show, definitely not great and certainly undeserving of the reputation its garnered, but entertaining and with enough worthwhile elements to keep me returning. But the adaptation choices have been pushing me a bit more the last few seasons.

[JonSnowed]

Dorne has been awful in my eyes, generally agree the show has become worse but it was in a very high place after the previous few seasons and source material was the poorest so far too.

[Darryk]

No, you're just so fixated on the ways in which the show falls short of the movie you had playing in your head when you read the books, that you can't enjoy the things it gets so right.

The house of black and white scenes, utterly brilliant this episode. Tyrion and Jorah, brilliant. What about Tyrion tellng Jorah about Mormont's death? We never get a powerful moment like that in the books.

Yeah, so the Dornish plot has been a bit lacklustre, but no show is perfect. It's not like they had much to work with there anyway becaise Dorne isn't exactly enthralling in the books either.

I think they probably would have preferred to exclude it entirely but perhaps some aspects of it will be too important to future events, or perhaps they saw some potential in it. Certainly Doran Martell is a great character and the best thing by far about Dorne in the books, maybe that plot line will improve as his TV counterpart gets more screentime.

As for Sansa, I have no idea what all the ruckus is about. Having her take Jeyne Pool's place as Ramsay's bride was a clever way of keeping her involved this season, don't really see what else they could have done. A whole season of intrigue in the Vale and another 20 new characters introduced just wasn't an option.

[Direwight]

It was first in season 4 that I started to have any kind of major problems with the show, mainly with the Craster's/Wall storyline, the dreadful Dreadfort flop and a bunch of sloppy continuity problems. However, even up to episode 6 it had had a lot of good scenes and moments and most things still made sense.

This season, I can't off the top of my head think of anything that I've actually really enjoyed, aside from the nice Stannis/Shireen scene. I mean sure, there's been some good scenes, but nothing stands out as particularly memorable in a good way; in the way that I'd actually feel like re-watching the scene on YouTube sometimes because it's a good scene. The first half of season 4 had the fight at the inn, the wedding, Sansa's escape, Daenerys taking Meereen (which had some good moments in it, even if the actual taking of the city was skipped) and the Craster's subplot (which at least had some good action), and quite a lot of good slow character moments.

I have no doubt that we'll get some really good scenes in the final episodes of this season, but the tons of problems up to this point have sort of destroyed my faith that the producers/writers won't disappoint. I'll still watch but it feels unlikely that I'll be anywhere near as invested in it as before. It's a huge change in my attitude towards the show as a viewer; I no longer anticipate the next episode with excitement and hope that it'll have some good stuff in it, but instead I find myself assuming that it'll probably disappoint. Disillusionment, I guess it's called.

Of course adapting from the source material was going to be trickier this season, but I do think it was entirely reasonably to expect them to do a massively better job at it.

[DraculaAD1972]

Stannis and Tyrion are our only hope. So far we have had two good scenes- Stannis with Shireen and Tyrion/Jorah. What the hell happened? It's painful to watch the greatest tv show start to implode. When the sandsnakes appear it's like they're making a b-movie for morons.

[BendTheKnee15]

I actually like this season, minus the sand snakes.

Jon's acting and arc I like.

Stannis is getting the play and respect he should have had.

Some things seem bundled but it's just impossible to cover all the books with te time frame they have .

[Keycube]

The first two episodes left me wanting in a bad way, but - apart from the cartoonish Dorne sequences - I'm approaching the season as a looooong setup; to which I'm hoping against hope we get some huge payoffs the rest of the season.

As an aside, although there is only one "Director" per episode, each location has their own set production "units", right? I assume with its own on-set director? I thought I read somewhere that different locations were shooting at the same time. Maybe that's why only Dorne is a resounding dud?

I just want to throw in that now that some of the "shock" of the Sansa scene has worn off, I look at the scene being much more about Theon than Sansa. No one wanted that to happen, but Sansa is no fool; she knew what to expect, and her value systems at this point extend far beyond what occured in that scene.

I have a feeling that if they introduced the Jeyne Poole/fArya plotline this season, we'd be hearing why they introduced a marginal character just to see her get brutalized. Can't please everyone.

[Lord Lannister]

You mean the quality of the writing was better when they were basically borrowing from the source material and now that they're having to write on their own the quality is diminishing? This doesn't seem surprising really.

[Keycube]

You mean the quality of the writing was better when they were basically borrowing from the source material and now that they're having to write on their own the quality is diminishing? This doesn't seem surprising really.

Some folks that have read all of the books claim that the last two take a bit of a dive themselves quality-wise; perhaps that doesn't help the situation. Things are getting so thinned out and tangential; there comes a point where one can't help but lose the (original) plot a bit.

[Lord Lannister]

Some folks that have read all of the books claim that the last two take a bit of a dive themselves quality-wise; perhaps that doesn't help the situation. Things are getting so thinned out and tangential; there comes a point where one can't help but lose the (original) plot a bit.

I would agree with that as well, and that could be a contributing factor. Several of the characters arcs have already "caught up" with the books already. The rest being nearly there as is, except of course for the increasing amount of characters that have radically diverged from the novels.

[Arya and Needle]

The first two episodes left me wanting in a bad way, but - apart from the cartoonish Dorne sequences - I'm approaching the season as a looooong setup; to which I'm hoping against hope we get some huge payoffs the rest of the season.

Some folks that have read all of the books claim that the last two take a bit of a dive themselves quality-wise; perhaps that doesn't help the situation.

I think Keycube as it exactly right with these two comments. The agree to which the show has declined in quality, if it even has at all, is due to the declined quality of the source material. It's also what forced the show writers to make the changes they did this season - reasonable people can disagree on how successful these changes were, but without any changes, the middle episodes of season five would have just been boring, instead of controversial.

Luckily, this should change at the end of the season, which should have as much exciting things happening as any part of the show's history: Cersei's walk of shame, Drogon attacking the fighting pit, the battle over Myrcella, the stabbing of Jon, Theon's escape from Winterfell, the freeing of the other dragons, Varys killing people in King's Landing, the revealing of Qyburn's monster, and Arya presumably killing Trant are all things that will be packed into the last few episodes, and we might even get some additional surprises like the battle of ice or Stoneheart. For anyone who remembers, it's a little bit analogous to Lost's season 3, whose middle and end were the worst and best parts of the show respectively.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

I disagree. You are just butthurt about Dorne in this week's episode. Almost all the other stuff is still as solid as it ever was, or more so (especially Arya in the House of B&W). It's not like last season had exactly fully stellar storylines: Yara's rescue attempt of Theon comes to mind.. they just can't write rescue plots well.

Looking back after the whole series has aired this will probably be one of the best seasons.

Exactly. The season 2 Qarth stuff was just as laughable and horrible as the Dorne stuff this year.

I've actually enjoyed the Mereen stuff and the Wall stuff so far better in the show than in the books. I'm also really enjoying Jorah and Tyrion's journey much better than Griff/Young Griff w/ Tyrion. That's not to say I wouldn't like to get Faegon, but really the Tyrion travelogue was terrible in the books.