Length of future seasons?

[Todd Sand bastard of AZ]

So GoT's season was 10 episodes, and I've read that CoK's season will also be 10. That's fair, both books were pretty close in length. They'll have to do more than 10 for SoS, won't they? It's more than twice the length of the first two books, and there is too much important story in it to be cut down much.

What do you all think?

[Aegnor]

So GoT's season was 10 episodes, and I've read that CoK's season will also be 10. That's fair, both books were pretty close in length. They'll have to do more than 10 for SoS, won't they? It's more than twice the length of the first two books, and there is too much important story in it to be cut down much.

What do you all think?

I think they will have to, unless they split the book into two seasons as rumored.

[Crow's Eye]

I think they will have to, unless they split the book into two seasons as rumored.

It's going to be tricky, and I am sure that the TV show loses the one-book, one-season format beginning in season three, due in part to the length of ASOS (and ADWD!) and due to the non-appearance of major characters in AFFC (and to a lesser extent, ADWD).

I suspect they will split ASOS into two seasons, with the first season stopping about 2/3 of the way through the book (with a certain event as a perfect season-ending cliffhanger). The last 1/3 of ASOS actually takes place at the same time as some of the early chapters in AFFC (such as the Ironborn and Dornish chapters) and presumably some of the early ADWD chapters as well, so the 4th season of the show could consist of the last third of ASOS, together with a portion of both AFFC and ADWD. That would be one hell of a season of television, what with the rapid-fire mega-events of the last third of ASOS.

Then the 5th season would finish out the remainder of AFFC and ADWD (although admittedly without knowing the content of ADWD, and considering its ASOS-like length, that's a pretty big presumption).

At least, that's how I see it unfolding at the moment. I think a lot of the material in AFFC can be compressed or eliminated altogether, such as a good portion some of the characters' wanderings and musings, where it takes them a whole book to get from A to B without much happening in between. Not that important events do not happen in those chapters, just that they can easily be condensed into a few scenes on TV. I suspect the same with be true with ADWD as well, but the jury's obviously out on that one.

So I think that we can still get by with three seasons to cover ASOS, AFFC and ADWD, but just not separated specifically by book. I fear that if four seasons (or more!) are needed to cover these three books, the "transitionary" nature of AFFC and ADWD could make for boring television, particularly coming after the events of ASOS, which could result in losing casual viewers and/or ratings problems.

Remember - even The Sopranos, arguably HBO's greatest series, only ran for 6 seasons (or 6.5, depending on your perspective). The Wire completed its run in five seasons, Rome in two, and Deadwood was cancelled after only 3 seasons. If D&D produce the series as if it were going to take 8 or 9 seasons to complete, they run the very real risk of not being able to finish. So what do you all think - is it better to condense the books and leave out material if it increases the odds of finishing the story? Or do you tell the best story you can, and leave the rest to fate?

[jellydonut]

I think it's better to gamble, and take the risk of not finishing.

This show is destined to be great, HBO would be idiots to cancel it. With the story and fanbase already existing, it's a low-risk show. Well, okay, it's epic and huge and the budget is considerable, but..

[Maginor]

It's going to be tricky, and I am sure that the TV show loses the one-book, one-season format beginning in season three, due in part to the length of ASOS (and ADWD!) and due to the non-appearance of major characters in AFFC (and to a lesser extent, ADWD).

I suspect they will split ASOS into two seasons, with the first season stopping about 2/3 of the way through the book (with a certain event as a perfect season-ending cliffhanger). The last 1/3 of ASOS actually takes place at the same time as some of the early chapters in AFFC (such as the Ironborn and Dornish chapters) and presumably some of the early ADWD chapters as well, so the 4th season of the show could consist of the last third of ASOS, together with a portion of both AFFC and ADWD. That would be one hell of a season of television, what with the rapid-fire mega-events of the last third of ASOS.

Then the 5th season would finish out the remainder of AFFC and ADWD (although admittedly without knowing the content of ADWD, and considering its ASOS-like length, that's a pretty big presumption).

At least, that's how I see it unfolding at the moment. I think a lot of the material in AFFC can be compressed or eliminated altogether, such as a good portion some of the characters' wanderings and musings, where it takes them a whole book to get from A to B without much happening in between. Not that important events do not happen in those chapters, just that they can easily be condensed into a few scenes on TV. I suspect the same with be true with ADWD as well, but the jury's obviously out on that one.

So I think that we can still get by with three seasons to cover ASOS, AFFC and ADWD, but just not separated specifically by book. I fear that if four seasons (or more!) are needed to cover these three books, the "transitionary" nature of AFFC and ADWD could make for boring television, particularly coming after the events of ASOS, which could result in losing casual viewers and/or ratings problems.

Remember - even The Sopranos, arguably HBO's greatest series, only ran for 6 seasons (or 6.5, depending on your perspective). The Wire completed its run in five seasons, Rome in two, and Deadwood was cancelled after only 3 seasons. If D&D produce the series as if it were going to take 8 or 9 seasons to complete, they run the very real risk of not being able to finish. So what do you all think - is it better to condense the books and leave out material if it increases the odds of finishing the story? Or do you tell the best story you can, and leave the rest to fate?

I agree with all of this, but I would perhaps open for the possibility of ending season 5 at the chronological point where book 4 ends, then let the second half of book 5 together with the last two books be three seasons, not necessarily ending them at the same points as the books. That would be 8 seasons total, which I think would be acceptable. Anything more than that would be too much. All of this depends a lot on what/how much happens in the last three books of course.

If they can compress it into 7 seasons without removing anything essential or making it feel too rushed, I think they should.

The Sopranos did have 86 episodes, by the way, which is more than GoT with 8 seasons would have.

[SFA-OK]

It's disappointing to hear that next season will only have 10 episodes. The first season really felt rushed in a lot of ways, and next season will introduce even more characters, so goodbye characterization!

One of the really neat (as well as frustrating) things about the books is how new characters are continually introduced and almost all of them are really interesting and cool. I don't know how HBO is going to effectively handle that by keeping episodes at just 10 per season. I really think 12 should be the minimum. Time to put a little more into the budget.

[The Anti-Targ]

I think it would be 3 books over 4 seasons for aSoS, aFfC and aDwD. How they slice it for each season is another question.

OTOH I think there is probably scope to cut savagely for all of those books. I could see them completely ditching Damphair as a character and hence only take one or to snippets from his chapters.

Actually with Theon swearing fealty to Robb they could completely remove the Iron Islands story. All the important broader Westerosi stuff the Iron men do can be told from the perspectives of their victims. The only time the series needs to spend at the Iron Islands is while Theon is there.

At this point in the story I don't care one whit about the Iron Islands or any of its characters, outsdide of what they do on the mainland of Westeros. Unless Euron is going to be the third dragon rider what use do they really have in the story as independant interests other than taking up pages and screen time?

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

It's disappointing to hear that next season will only have 10 episodes. The first season really felt rushed in a lot of ways, and next season will introduce even more characters, so goodbye characterization!

In total there are way less character introductions, though, and IMO those are what made the first 4 episodes so clunky. About 80% of the characters are carried over from S1 so we'll be able to jump right in to the great characterization scenes with them.

I predict S2 will be even better than S1 for characterization.

I do hope that they make S3 at least 12 episodes, however. But honestly I don't know wtf they are going to do with Season 3. There are just way too many expensive battles and crazy-exotic locations (think of Dany's storyline alone!)

[ferthepoet]

I wonder if later on, if the show is successful enough they can have two 10 episodes season in the same year, the benefit of these over say having a 20 episode season is that they can sell the dvd separately

[Maginor]

I wonder if later on, if the show is successful enough they can have two 10 episodes season in the same year, the benefit of these over say having a 20 episode season is that they can sell the dvd separately

The disadvantage is that there is no way they can do that with their schedule.

[The hairy bear]

So what do you all think - is it better to condense the books and leave out material if it increases the odds of finishing the story? Or do you tell the best story you can, and leave the rest to fate?

I agree with your approach wholeheartly. We have to be realistic, about those things. Aiming for a 10 season show is not a "risk", it's an insurance the we won't make it. So, without sacrificing the integral parts of the story, I believe they should at least aim to end it.

Seven seasons is already a distant hope. So if they could manage to do ASOS+AFFC+ADWD in three seasons, even if severe cuts were needed, I'd support them.

[Kilroy]

I agree with your approach wholeheartly. We have to be realistic, about those things. Aiming for a 10 season show is not a "risk", it's an insurance the we won't make it. So, without sacrificing the integral parts of the story, I believe they should at least aim to end it.

Seven seasons is already a distant hope. So if they could manage to do ASOS+AFFC+ADWD in three seasons, even if severe cuts were needed, I'd support them.

I would have to agree that holding it to 7 seasons is probably for the best. However nothing says they have to keep the 10 episode per season format. They might easily go to a 12 episode format for longer books such as ASOS and ADWD. AGOT was done in 10 ep. reasonably well I thought and so ACOK should probably also be done in 10.

As for ASOS, I believe it can be done in 12 eps in Season 3 and overlap with AFFC in Season 4 or ACOK in Season 2 since they are smaller. For example ACOK is actually 10 episodes but the season could be 12 episodes because they start to work in ASOS storyline into season 2 which should be not difficult since chapters are character POVs and not time line based. Then since ASOS is so long it takes another 12 episodes to get into it. Then bleed over 2 more episodes into Season 4 somewhere from ASOS into the storyline of AFFC. Basically piggy backing 2 extra episodes in the season before and after it which makes the ASOS secretly 16 episodes but the meat of it could be told in the 12 episode season 3. Hopefully that makes sense. ADWD could then also be 12 eps.

So it's not really expanding the number of seasons but expanding the number of episodes each season to 12 to tell the story.

S01E10, S02E12, S03E12, S04E12, S05E12 and so on. I think that model would work just fine. After all the other HBO series, "Boardwalk Empire" & "True Blood", both have a 12 episode run per season. So why not "Game of Thrones"? So, 7 seasons I believe is enough but certainly in no way should it be more than 8 seasons. After all it's not SG1 with it's tiny frugal budget.

Of course you know what this means. If they do only 7 seasons. It means that G.R.R.M. now has 5 years to complete the last two books before the show over runs the books. And the last thing you want is a series to take a break for a year. It has shown to be nothing but trouble. The writer's strike showed us that much.

[Thefalconemperor]

There could be 4 10-episode seasons to the ASOS-AFFC-ADWD combo, the first of them ending on Joffrey's death and the last one on *CENSORED*. That would be more than enough.

[King D Evoker]

If the book is very lengthy... they could just split into 2 parts, but still within the same season. That will keep things more neat and simple.

The drama I watched before GoT is Nikita, they had a short break in the middle of the 20+ episodes of Season 1. I find it acceptable. Good things are worth the wait.

Anyway I find 10 episodes just nice for Season 1. Although I didn't read the book, but the pace and content of the show are sweetly solid. I would assume too long a series may be too much to absorb for a first exposure.

[SFA-OK]

I predict S2 will be even better than S1 for characterization.

I do hope that they make S3 at least 12 episodes, however. But honestly I don't know wtf they are going to do with Season 3. There are just way too many expensive battles and crazy-exotic locations (think of Dany's storyline alone!)

I hope you're right with season 2 having better characterization than season 1. There are definitely less characters introduced in the second book, but there are still going to be more characters, which logistically will make it pretty hard to have better characterization with the same amount of episodes as last season. We still have all the characters (that didn't die) from season 1 coming back. I hope the writers are up to the task, it'll be a challenge.

That's a good point about future books and storylines. I also thought of part of Dany's storyline (those cites will be interesting to see how they're done on screen). HBO will definitely have to up the budget or simply continue to cut out some pivotal moments from the books. I'm starting to wonder whether HBO actually thought this series through when they decided to do the adaptation.

[Venardhi]

I imagine if the ratings continue growing into the second season (and if it picks up a couple emmys) a larger order for season 3 will seem significantly less risky to the HBO execs. Remember that when they made the order for season 2 we were looking at viewer numbers that were rather less than astonishing considering the breadth and ferocity of the ad campaign.

[Rinso]

My humble opinion is that Season 2 can be done in 10 episodes. For Season 3, they would need between 12 and 15 episodes. It will become tougher with Seasons 4 and 5 because of the character split in the books. I'd reccomend they do the opposite of what GRRM did - tell half the story with all the characters instead of all the story for half the characters. AFFC can be covered in 10 episodes, and I can assume that anything more than 12 will be excessive for ADWD. Beyond that we can't guess.

[Other May I?]

I thought I asked this, but I guess I forgot to post it:

Do we know what next season will be called?

(Game of Thrones Season 2 or Clash of Kings)

[The Fan]

I thought I asked this, but I guess I forgot to post it:

Do we know what next season will be called?

(Game of Thrones Season 2 or Clash of Kings)

I am fairly certain it will continue to be Game of Thrones, possibly with the subtitle of A Clash of Kings.

[Horza]

I am fairly certain it will continue to be Game of Thrones, possibly with the subtitle of A Clash of Kings.

I am reliably informed it will be 'Game of Thrones II: Throne Harder'.