Fez

8/10 Lot to like. Baelish's plan having a whole other level that actually makes it start to make sense (albeit still overly-complicated) was awesome. And most of other scenes were all great. I particularly liked Jorah finding out his father died; stuff like that helps bind together all the different strands of the story. The Sansa stuff was fine. I mean, it was crazy, but it made sense it would happen and wasn't nearly as bad as it could of been (granted, the fact that I'm relieved it was "only" rape is pretty bad, and says some things, but at least neither Theon nor dogs were involved). Dorne was sadly pretty terrible again. Also, maybe its nitpicky, but I was a bit disappointed that as major a thing as winter finally being here (at least at Winterfell) wasn't a more major thing; there was just a throwaway line by Cersei.

Almost certainly (>99.9%). If there's a 4th (and presumably more than that) dragon flying around, that's either an absolutely massive spoiler or an absolutely massive deviation from the books. For the former, they seem to be avoiding spoilers until they can't anymore and that wasn't a necessary shot if it was a spoiler; and for the later, no deviation they've had thus far would come anywhere close that.

That's true. In the books, LF and Varys are clearly both meant to be incredibly smart; but they really are quite alike (in fact, the only real difference is the possibility that Varys tells Kevan the truth and does care about the realm rather than his own advancement). Whereas in the show, it seems D&D wanted to have more differences between the two, so Varys is still meant to be incredibly smart but LF is meant to be a gambler (whose gambles have paid off thus far) rather than smart.

Firstly, the War of Five Kings isn't the story. Its part one of the story, and the fact that the Red Wedding was in book three of the story when it was supposed to in book one originally proves my point. Secondly, name calling = *ignore*

To start with, the apparent change in standard Westerosi vocabulary so that everyone says 'nuncle.' Next up we have every single one of Brienne's chapters being absurdly repetitive. Followed up by Cersei turning cartoonishly incompetent for no good reason, and Jamie going on adventures that don't amount to anything. And so on. ETA: Going to a more meta level, there is the overarching problem that GRRM is great at starting stories but bad at concluding them. He keeps spinning the plot out wider and wider in AFFC and ADWD with no apparent clue as to how it will circle back to the main threads or even resolve itself.

Considering her decision to push back the climaxes to two of the main story lines to TWOW, I wouldn't be so confident in her abilities. And its not a question of missing stuff, its that AFFC was very poorly written all around and ADWD had great prose but terrible pacing and plot decisions.

When Aemon was talking about Dany being alone, I half thought he was going to say he needed to sail to Meereen, rather than Oldtown. I'm not sure if the show ever clarified whether he was actually a brother of the NW, or just the maester who was sworn to Castle Black and therefore free to leave (okay, he'd still be deserting the maesters, but its never been said that they have strict punishments for deserters). I'm not sure what justification could be used to get Sam and Gilly to join him, but something could've been thought up if necessary (maybe say that Volantis has a great library, and then have them get caught up in everything once they're there). Since he didn't say anything about sailing anywhere though, except the Hardhome expedition, I'm not sure anyone's sailing anywhere.

Despite my 9/10 rating, something that does give me pause is that even though I've generally liked all the individuals episodes this season (I think my ratings are 7, 7, 8, 9, 9), something about the season as a whole seems off. I know its usually a very deliberate show in its pacing, but this season feels especially slow. We're already halfway through the season and only Sansa really feels like she's done much yet (and that's mostly a function of being one of the few characters in multiple geographic locations thus far; Jamie has too, but he's barely been in the season so far). Even if the battle for Winterfell and Dany announcing its time to head to Westeros both occur this season, and I think they will, I think the big events immediately prior to those things should have been stretched out more and this early season table-setting been compressed more.

9/10 Was leaning towards 8/10, but the Jorah/Tyrion scene put me over the edge. It was odd not having any Kings Landing (was that the only time besides the Battle of Castle Black where that happened), but by skipping it and Dorne, it really gave the various Northern scenes time to breathe. Mereen sucked I thought, but I realize I'm inherently biased against that storyline so I'm not a fair judge; Dany going superdark at the beginning was pretty welcome though.

Haha. Roose actually told that story and didn't say the line. D&D definitely be trolling.

Considering how crowded Dany's court will be once Tyrion and Jorah get there, it makes sense to thin it out a bit beforehand. I think Grey Worm lives, but Barry's a goner.

9/10 The faith militant montage was clunky, but otherwise great episode (grepisode). Stannis' scene and the curveball out in Meereen being the standouts. Missed Arya though. ETA: Oh, and even though the montage was clunky, the scenes afterwards really effectively showed how weak Tommen is. That was good too. ETA2: The Sand Snakes were super weaksauce too, I just remembered that. Enough to bust it down to 8.5, but I round.

Sure. I didn't say it was a good movie, I said John Malkovich was good. Movie itself gets a 4 out of 10 (writing 0/3, acting 1/3, production values 3/4). Obviously. But I maintain that not factoring how great the show looks into a rating ignores a lot about what the show is. The exact percentage can change, but people who are giving the show the 1s, 2s, 3s (and I argue, all the way up to 6, but that's my preference) are saying that nothing matters but the writing (and likely that the problem is that writing isn't like the books anymore).

Well, firstly there's a difference between good actors and good acting. There's a gazillion beautifully produced films with good actors that are because of bad writing AND bad acting. When they are beautifully produced with good acting and bad writing, you get something like Pirates of the Caribbean, which is perfectly fine entertainment. And when the acting and writing is bad, but the production values are great, there's still something worth seeing for spectacle usually. Secondly, I think there's tons of examples of things with great writing and acting that are ruined by terrible production values. The first thing that springs to mind for me is Babylon 5; everyone says its great but the CGI and sets are so terrible that I can't watch more than 15 minutes. I just listened to the the How Did This Get Made about ConAir, so its on my mind. But there's plenty of other examples. Take Daniel Day Lewis in Nine; he was great as always, the writing was not.

Firstly, your last point, I strong disagree. John Malkovich has said several times that he has no idea what his character was actually doing in ConAir, and yet he was still fantastic. Good and great acting can elevate writing far beyond what it otherwise is; and the original Star Wars trilogy is another perfect example of that. Shows can be done without a glamorous production and be great, sure. All the outdoor shots that GoT has are a luxury that few other shows can afford; but its not just that sort of thing. Its the nuts and bolts stuff of costuming, set design, prop departments, lighting, sound design, etc. that pull shows together. All of that is important. BBC dramas from the era before they spent money can be delightfully good, but they are never great. I, Claudius sure did have wonderful writing and acting (and Brian Blessed just doing his thing, which worked); it also took place in about five rooms and never captured the scope and grandeur of what was going on. So I'd probably give it an 8/10 (3/3 for acting, 3/3 for writing, and 2/4 for production values because I'm willing to grade on a scale for different eras of TV and at least the costumes were pretty good).

I somehow doubt that a bottle episode exclusively featuring Pycelle's brothel adventures would have the same production values that the show has had up to this point. On the other hand, Julian Glover really is a fantastic actor, so it would be great to see him showcase that. But yes, I truly don't consider the writing to be worth more than 30% of the show's value and I don't consider fidelity to the novels to be worth any of that 30%; only fidelity to the show's internal characterizations. Its nice when the show follows the novels, at the least on the big stuff, but I don't care at all when it doesn't.

Even if you hate absolutely everything else, the production values alone are impressive enough that no episode of the show should be rated below '4'. Then there's the acting, which is usually good for another 2-3 points, meaning that only 3 out of 10 points should really be about the writing; which is the primary issue that some people here have with the show. So even if you despise everything D&D have written, I don't think its defensible to rate the show below a '6' unless you legitimately dislike the acting as well, and then maybe a 4 or 5 could be given.

9/10. It should probably be 8/10 but I'm so happy to not be in Meereen that I'm boosting it an extra point. It still felt a bit slow, but at the same time, the contours of the season-long plotlines finally felt like they were becoming clear. And I appreciate that a great deal. The Wall, Braavos, and Volantis were the highlights for me.

Reddit, NeoGaf, and WOTW are the ones I'm most familiar.

To me, it looks like the season 2 polls still have slightly more ratings, and Seasons 3 and 4 have a lot more (the Rains of Castamere for instance has over 1,200 ratings); which makes sense since the show was getting ever more popular (in terms of viewers). Its even more popular this season, and the board continues to have technical issues from all the people coming, but I think there are less people here than the past couple seasons, and I think that's due to a lot of people who really like the show not posting as much anymore. I know I don't (at least, not in the show forum), because the people who don't like show are so... let's say exuberant, in their dislike. There are many other places where people can discuss the show online, and in all the ones I've seen, the show is significantly better received than it is here. There's some dissatisfaction with the pacing so far this season, a complaint that I also have, but that's pretty much it.

8/10 It was tighter than the first episode (except Meereen, which I continue to despise, but I don't penalize the show for that because that's an anchor from the books). I don't think the start or reasoning of Jaime's mission to Dorne was handled well, I thought the night watch election was a little too fast (granted, I'm also glad it didn't drag out), and the reversal of Jaqen/Kindly Man's decision to let Arya in wasn't explained well enough. Everything else I liked; particularly Kevan's brief yet memorable scene.

I think having Mance be glamoured would undercut the weight and impact of the burning scene to an enormous degree, enough so that, were that to happening, they wouldn't have spent so much time on it and it wouldn't have closed out the episode.

Well if they didn't they're the exception. The show had 7.997 million live viewers Sunday night, breaking the old viewership record by 800,000.

That's interesting. Even though I only gave this a 7, I don't think it was anywhere near the worst episode of the series (that'd probably go to one of the mid-season 3 clunkers; full of Theon torture and stalling for the Red Wedding). I wonder if many people, myself included, were so hyped for the return of the show we forgot how slow-paced the premieres usually are and ended up being harsher than usual.

7/10 Some good scenes, no great ones, and the whole episode was just too slow. I know that's par the course for season openers, so I'm not too disappointed, but it still felt a bit like stalling. I think the extended "previously on" covered enough ground that it would've been okay for this episode to move forward on storylines rather than sit back and take stock of where everything was post-ep10 of last year. And the thing is, the storylines that did have that forward movement, the Wall and Tyrion-Varys, I think were by far the best part of the episode.