Ran Posted May 3, 2014 Author Share Posted May 3, 2014 (edited) Mr. Fixit, Are you going to tell us the sun rises in the east and nothing is certain but death and taxes, too? ;) The fact is that it's not exactly a universally praised episode by critics, whatever Metacritic says. Both critics at AV Club (reader and non-reader) have it as their least favorite episode of the season, and I know others have shared their gripes. Edited May 3, 2014 by Ran Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boojam Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 (edited) So, if I understand correctly, the posters here believe this was one of the weakest GoT episodes ever put to screen. Yup, no book bias at all. :read: :commie: ^_^ Over at Rotten Tomatoes (they ought to rename that site!) there are , if I count right, 36 positive review, with analysis, one negative review. Over all score 97. RT does not seem to collect all possible reviewers (I like Myles McNutt long reviews over at Cultural Learnings) but it's a pretty broad spectrum of TV reviews. (I keep noting that the New York Times Arts Beat Jeremy Egner reviews each episode this season, I don't know if NYT did this in former years or not, it's been positive... in contrast to Mike Hale's muddled season previews which turn out negative but are kind of mixed, but mostly worthless.) Over at IMDB S4E4 got a Arithmetic mean = 9.0. Median = 9 out of 3478 votes. The sample is fairly big and they have histograms of two kinds of stuff but no error bars. Never know what to think of IMDB. I don't know if trolls vote there, does not seem their kind of thing. Message boards on IMDB are overrun by adolescent and arrested adolescent trolls, signal to noise is very bad. Edited May 3, 2014 by boojam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted May 3, 2014 Author Share Posted May 3, 2014 (edited) RT just decides if a review is positive or not. Some reviews are more positive than others. I think a finer parsing of the reviews would show that critics weren't as happy with the episode as they were with previous episodes, for the most part, so there's no real surprise if this forum dislikes it more than the previous episodes (for the most part; as it happens, 3 is the least liked episode of the series, and that's definitely in large part because of the feeling that they seriously botched the sept scene.) Edited May 3, 2014 by Ran Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moondancer Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 (edited) Ran, If I don't want to be spoiled (not even a tidbit of the future plot), should I continue to watch the show? This is very important to me. I like the forum, but following the last week's episode, even the books part of the forum found a way to illustrate that something is happening ie every thread regarding the Others and The Night King was bumped. Edited May 3, 2014 by Moondancer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted May 3, 2014 Author Share Posted May 3, 2014 (edited) Moondancer, Yeah, I think those who absolutely will not want even the chance of getting spoiled should start considering stopping their watching of the show. Edited May 3, 2014 by Ran Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moondancer Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 Ah. Well, there's always the world of Ice and Fire subforum. Thanks for your reply! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rashtibram Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 (edited) Unfortunately, I didn't feel that this episode quite lived up to the standard we've come to expect from Bryan Cogman's material in seasons 2 and 3. This may be, in part, due to the material he was given to adapt, but the episode didn't seem to have the emotional grab, smooth character development and engrossing plot quality that characterized 'Kissed by Fire' and 'What is Dead May Never Die.' When I say this is the worst episode of the season so far, that's not to say it was in any way bad. Moreover, it reflects the difference in general pacing between the first three seasons and this one. The reason 'Oathkeeper' felt so slow, so much so that it is worthy of comparison to 'The Bear and the Maiden Fair' and 'The Prince of Winterfell' in terms of a general sense of momentum, is that the Purple Wedding this season took on the role of the major plot catalyst we usually could expect to see in episode four (Catelyn taking Tyrion prisoner, Melisandre giving birth to the Shadow Assassin, and "Dracarys"). The decision to place such a momentous event in episode two (as well as the decision to compress the battles in the North into episode 4x09: I maintain that Ygritte's death would have made a perfectly satisfying "episode four moment") meant that the stretch of episodes between 4x03 and 4x08 have very little in terms of exciting book material to adapt. Whereas the previous seasons built to an epic mid-season sub-climax and then built again to an "episode nine moment," season 4 hit you right off the bat with a game-changing, climactic event, and is proceeding to wallow in procrastination while it waits patiently to arrive at the final shockers of ASOS in the closing three episodes. This seems, to me, to be an odd decision in retrospect (even though I admittedly fully endorsed it prior to season four's airing). So just because 'Oathkeeper' failed to live up to expectations doesn't suddenly mean the show sucks, or that Bryan Cogman's taken a jarring turn for the worse. I'm eagerly awaiting 'The Laws of Gods and Men,' as what with Tyrion's trial and Yara's attack on the Dreadfort he should be able to wrangle up something more like the emotional punch we all fondly remember from 'Kissed by Fire' and the closing scene of 2x03. 6/10 Edited May 3, 2014 by Haldir Monark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ground_control Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 Unfortunately, I didn't feel that this episode quite lived up to the standard we've come to expect from Bryan Cogman's material in seasons 2 and 3. This may be, in part, due to the material he was given to adapt, but the episode didn't seem to have the emotional grab, smooth character development and engrossing plot quality that characterized 'Kissed by Fire' and 'What is Dead May Never Die.' Well, about 40% of this episode was pure invention, not adaptation, so that could have a lot to do with it. I know that things get moved around after writing some times -- do we even know for sure what parts Cogman did and didn't write? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Count Balerion Posted May 3, 2014 Share Posted May 3, 2014 Episode 4: I keep going back and forth between 8 and 9. The Meereen segment was quite good, althoughat first I wondered what on earth was going on. Grey Worm's speech was very impressive, and Ser Bfinally gets to do something. Although speaking of doing something, I'm feeling the force of thecomplaint that Jorah doesn't get to do very much. Are they not going to do his exile? I also wonder if itwould've been better to place this segment at the end.Anyway, I enjoyed almost all the segments, especially in the first two-thirds, but would single out all thescenes with Jaime; the Queen of Thorns; and Ser Pounce turning up after all. BIG SCREAMINGSPOILER: SP ends up ruling the Seven Kingdoms when the series is over.And I liked the Night's Watch better than usual, although I got a bit lost north of the Wall again. I used toget confused because I hadn't read the books; now I get confused because I have. Superb landscapes,though. I also hope that was Coldhands. I'm not terribly sure about the CK plot, although Jon's speechand interaction with SA were very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Fixit Posted May 4, 2014 Share Posted May 4, 2014 (edited) Are you going to tell us the sun rises in the east and nothing is certain but death and taxes, too? ;) Hey, that's your American/Swedish bias there! Where I come from, taxes are most definitely not certain. ^_^ As for the episode, look how many posters rated it 1-5. I'd say the main reason is that the show went off books, simple as that. Edited May 4, 2014 by Mr Fixit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted May 4, 2014 Author Share Posted May 4, 2014 (edited) Note how many vote it a 10 as well, when I don't know of any critics who felt the thing was perfect. If people want to vote 10 on their scale, that's fine, but then you have to accept someone else's scale could be a 1. That's why it gets averaged out, and why I try and provide a normalized average by reducing the outliers. Edited May 4, 2014 by Ran Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Desmond Wine's Bane Posted May 4, 2014 Share Posted May 4, 2014 As for the episode, look how many posters rated it 1-5. I'd say the main reason is that the show went off books, simple as that. People will vote how they will. Some people gave it a 10 because it had a cat in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted May 4, 2014 Author Share Posted May 4, 2014 Which we still had ratings. That'd be a +1. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ground_control Posted May 4, 2014 Share Posted May 4, 2014 I'm not sure how hard it would be, but it would be interesting to see ratings for each scene as well as the overall rating. I think the easiest way would be to add a separate thread/poll for each scene (after the epsiode airs, of course) to compliment the "overall" rating thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kissdbyfire Posted May 13, 2014 Share Posted May 13, 2014 It was a bad episode. One of the weakest overall, imho. Gave it a 4, and that's only because I kind of liked the scene with Jaime and Brienne. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Queen Carol Posted April 3, 2015 Share Posted April 3, 2015 7. A lot of my feels for the actual Oathkeeper scene were killed because of last week's episode, but this was still solid all around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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