Ranking the seasons

[Ser Friendzoned]

4

3=1=5

2

 

Not a single season was bad. I just think Season 2 was pretty much ruined by Jon and Dany's arcs.

 

The problem with Season 5, at least for me, it's not a drop in general quality, but a drop in quality with some arcs. Dorne was just plain bad. The same with Brienne. But the Wall or Meeren were pretty well handled if you ask me.

 

The Wall storyline is the best handled so far on this show. Only Season 2 was bad.

 

I totally agree about season 2. I found it the most boring by far, Dany in the desert and Qarth was terrible, and Jon's/NW's story was stale.

 

As far as ranking them...

 

1) Season 5

2) Season 1

3) Season 4

4) Season 3 

5) Season 2

[Barbossa]

For me its exactly in order. I feel the show go progressively a tad bit worse as the seasons went by. Most attribute that to the last 2 books being worse then the first 3, which is true but..the actors except for Pedro Pascal(Oberyn) that joined the cast are really just awful.

 

Then the synergy bit, ever since a few(well a lot) of the original cast died the ones remaining don't really have anyone good left to trade lines back and forth.

 

Still a damn good show mind you, just that it doesn't keep me glued to the screen from start to finish each episode. If i look back this season, the only memorable scene for me is the one at hardhome  and maybe the one where Theon is Theon again for a little bit.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Season one still the best for me, but really it's because the book lent itself so well to a TV series, it was the most condensed and linear of the lot, it's after that things started to go wrong and you have the main problem with the show, that it can't handle so many storylines and do them justice.

Season 2 was a big culprit here, though it also has the same problem as 5, lots of characters getting over last seasons issues and starting again.

4 seems to be many people's favourite but I think it has just as many poor bits as it does excellent. Ramsey has always been a poor addition to the show. The Trial episode is a real Jekyll and Hyde episode, first half being maybe the most boring half an episode ever and the last half being mind blowing

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5

[Lordsteve666]

[BOOK SPOILERS BELOW!!!]

 

For me it's like this:

 

S3 - probably the best I think, The budget had grown enough to allow decent effects and sets etc and they had just enough on the important parts fo the plot to please readers and non-readers alike.

 

S1- mainly because despite the show's small budget back then it was fairly faithful to the book and covered the material pretty well. No cutting corners or dropping large parts of the plot here.

 

S2 - probably the mid point for me. It ramps up the effects and scenery shots but they cut out some of the intrigue in KL and with Stannis etc that could have made it even better.

 

S4 - This to me was where things started to show warning signs. Missing out Lady Stoneheart when they had the perfect opportunity was a bad move, even more so now we have rumours of a return to the Riverlands in S6. Changing Arya's story to a road trip with the hound was good fun but avoided some great parts from the books. Brienne and Pod just happening to meet Arya was just daft, despite the fight with the Hound being one of the best scenes i the series. The trial scenes were good and the Purple Wedding was good, but a lot of the other aspects felt like filler or were changed for no reason.

 

S5 - a real down-turn for the show in my opinion. Sure AFFC and ADWD are not perfect but there was material in there for at least a season and a half without needed to resort to nonsense fan-fiction like we had for Dorne, Tyrion, Jorah, Varys, Stannis and practically every other person on screen. Made up stories and other people having so many changes to their plot you don't even know who you are dealing with any more (Sansa, Stannis)

About the only thing really enjoyed this season was Hardhome which was made up in that it's never seen in 1st person POV in the books. The rest of the season was filler drivel of the highest order. And nobody should ever forgive that "bad pussy" bullshit we had to put up with.....

[boojam]

Challenge accepted!
 
From best to worst:
 
01- Baelor
02- Blackwater

Blackwater was season 2, so makes me wonder why S2 gets a bad rap?
All the non-Qarth scenes were good too, everybody seems to blame Qarth and not consider the rest of season 2.

[Mark Antony]

Season two was very mediocre aside from Blackwater and What is Dead May Never Die.

[Ingelheim]

Blackwater was season 2, so makes me wonder why S2 gets a bad rap?
All the non-Qarth scenes were good too, everybody seems to blame Qarth and not consider the rest of season 2.

 

Jon Snow's arc was also bad. The same for Cat, Robb, Jaime, etc.

[boojam]

Season two was very mediocre aside from Blackwater and What is Dead May Never Die.

I don't see it. A lot of time was spent at KL, and all that mostly Tyrion, that was fine.
Arya adventures on the way to Harrenhall were good, the introduction and story with Jaqen was a nice condensation.
The rework of Arya at Harrenhll with the tête-à-tête with Tywin was a gem.
All the Stormlands , Iron Islands, at Winterfell, beyond the Wall, the Westerlands and Dragonstone were fine with me.
Everybody seems to forget those and that's most of the story.

[TepidHands]

I don't see it. A lot of time was spent at KL, and all that mostly Tyrion, that was fine.
Arya adventures on the way to Harrenhall were good, the introduction and story with Jaqen was a nice condensation.
The rework of Arya at Harrenhll with the tête-à-tête with Tywin was a gem.
All the Stormlands , Iron Islands, at Winterfell, beyond the Wall, the Westerlands and Dragonstone were fine with me.
Everybody seems to forget those and that's most of the story.

Indeed. Season 2 had a lot of the fallout from season 1, and most of the characters were on the move, but there was nothing as vapid as Dorne or as confounding as the ascent of the Gay-Hating Sparrows that infested Season 5. 

1-2/3-4----------------5. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

It's hard to judge a season on one terrible aspect of it. I think Dorne is by far the worst thing to have happened to the show so far, but the second worst might be Daario version 1, which was appalling as well. I won't judge a season based on that.

Having said that, there were far more bad moments in this series than in all the other ones

[kissdbyfire]

1 - 9
2/3 - 5



















4/5 - 0

[RenlyTheOneTrueKing]

1. Season 4- 9.7
2. Season 5- 9.5
3. Season 3- 9
4. Season 2- 8.9
5. Season 1-8.8

All the seasons are great!

[Ingelheim]

1. Season 4
2. Season 5
3. Season 3
4. Season 1
5. Season 2

That's just for me.

Sorry I don't think Season 5 was that bad.

 

You don't have to apologize for that. Everyone has their own opinion.

 

I liked Season 5 very much, although I would have made quite a few changes.

[RenlyTheOneTrueKing]

 
You don't have to apologize for that. Everyone has their own opinion.
 
I liked Season 5 very much, although I would have made quite a few changes.

I edited my post before seeing this, sorry. I thought I may have come off a little standoffish.

I agree. Season 5 was great for me at the wall and in Meereen.

I would've had Siddig use his ability and given fire and blood.
Sansa's storyline was excludable for me. Enjoyed seeing the inner workings of the Boltons more.

Why they cut the Godswoods scene I'll never know

[ser tywin lannister]

4, 2, 1, 3, 5.

Was not impressed with season 5 outside of the last couple of episodes.

Season 4, for me was by far my favorite.

[nyser1]

Blackwater was season 2, so makes me wonder why S2 gets a bad rap?
All the non-Qarth scenes were good too, everybody seems to blame Qarth and not consider the rest of season 2.

 

I agree. I thought season 5 was far below the previous 4. 

[MoreOrLess]

Season 2 to me felt like they were still working out how to adapt the more wide ranging story that's typical of most of the books rather than the more linear narrative of book/season 1.

 

Besides maybe Dany being too bratty (at least until the end) I don't think theres much "bad" about it but the non KL plots too tend to choke on exposition a bit more than the rest of the shows run. I felt those Tywin/Ayra scenes though were definitely a move towards the end of style the show would have in the future though, making sure it had time for lengthy character interactions. Blackwater then seemed to mark the birth of what the show as we've known it since.

 

I felt the 3rd and 4th seasons were clearly the best so far, the 5th was perhaps the most uneven as Dorne was probably the worst plot thread so far BUT it still had the edge on the first two seasons in terms of its character focus.

[RenlyIsNotRight]

Season 1 was amazing. Plain and simple. Maybe it overused sexposition a bit, but it was great in pretty much every other aspect.

 

Season 2 wasn’t the same quality as Season 1 – Dany and Robbs storylines in particular not being quite up to snuff. But it was still pretty strong overall, with Blackwater being probably the single best episode of the entire series.

 

Season 3 was where a lot of the major problems with the show really started – D&D started to get a little too big for their britches, writing original storylines that really didn’t add anything to the narrartive, and making their own biases towards (Dany, Tyrion) and against (Stannis, the Brotherhood) certain characters more obvious. But it still delivered where it really counted (The Red Wedding and especially Jaime’s arc, which is why it’s so ironic that Jaime ended up becoming so mishandled in later seasons)

 

Season 4 was the point where I kind of accepted that the show was dumbed down compared to the books, and despite that for the most part I found it highly entertaining if severely lacking in depth compared to prior seasons. They did have their work cut out for them to be fair, seeing as the second half Storm of Swords is by far the best part of Martins books. It did majorly drop the ball on a few occasions though – specifically the infamous Jaime Rape scene and Tyrions scenes in the finale.

 

Season 5 was complete and utter garbage. Pure D&D fanfiction with “MUH SHOCK VALUE!” reigning supreme over character development and story. Even the parts of Season 5 that started out good (Jon & Stannis) were ruined down the line by their horrible resolutions. Could D&D make their raging boners for Ramsay any more obvious? And lets not forget the crown jewel of the entire series - “you want the good girl, but you need the bad pussy” How anyone still defends this show after that fucking trainwreck of a season is beyond me. It was as bad if not worse than Season 2 of True Detective imo. 

[MoreOrLess]

Honestly that kind of opinion shows to me why you shouldn't focus on looking to please fans of the book when adapting such works, many/most them are more concerned with slavish adaptation than actual quality.

 

I see exactly the opposite in terms of character development, much of the first couple of seasons where the show is mostly focused on fitting everything in from the book tend to be significantly weaker and at points come across as "we don't need to do that because the readers know" with characters ending up as much more archetypical. Those extra Tywin/Arya scenes though to me seem to mark the point where the show started to be run more on its own terms and I think from season 3 onwards you see a clear shift with reduced exposition and complexity of plot in favour of longer character scenes that allow for more subtle characterisation with much more of the cast.

[Joe Pesci]

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