The Cost.. how will HBO afford this?

[Werthead]

I don't think you'd quite need two full seasons to do ASoS. What you could do, especially if HBO were looking to spread costs out over a longer period of time, would be to do the story across 16 episodes rather than 12 but then split that into two 8-episode half-seasons, airing them in subsequent years. So you'd get more time to do the story but would have to sacrifice 4 episodes per year to do it, and then if that works you can get back to the traditional 12-episode seasons with the AFFC/ADWD subduology*.

We already have the breaking point (from the UK mmpbs) which seems to work quite well, and it would save money in the short run whilst simultaneously helping the series in the long. Of course, if the show is doing well at that point, they may lay down the money for a longer season instead.

The Tudors didn't have as much material for its third season as they did for the first two so they just did an 8-episode season instead, which seemed to work well.

* This word does not exist on the Internet according to Google, so I henceforth lay claim to it :)

is this true? i only ask as when season 2 ended it was a natural place to end it. where else was there to go, Augustus ruled over a very peaceful era, great architecture and cultural advances, but limited blood and guts. wouldnt have made great television.

Rome Season 2 was supposed to end with Philippi after 10-12 episodes and Season 3 with Antony and Cleopatra after another 10-12 episodes. After that there was going to be a generational leap with Season 4 taking place around the time of Jesus and then another leap to Caligula/Claudius. That all got screwed because of the cancellation.

[Brude]

I think a longer season for ASoS is probably the best choice. I suppose if the show is a big enough hit they might do it. It may be they could do it in 14 and not 16, I don't know. They've done plenty of 13 episode seasons in the past. Even if not ideal, 14 would give them more breathing room than would 12. It's a whole other feature film's worth of time to spread the story out more.

[Ser Greguh]

A Storm of Swords is a very big book where quite a lot of stuff happens, to be sure - 80 chapters, plus a prologue and epilogue - but I'm not entirely convinced it couldn't all fit into 13 episodes. If D&D and their writers show good economy with their scripts (and we've good reason to believe they will), I could even see the season opener getting as far as Jaime III and Catelyn III (thus ending with a pair of severed body parts, one fatal, one not so much) with Sam the Slayer thrown in for good measure. Between 6 and 7 chapters per episode doesn't seem unreasonable at all, given how many of the chapters will really just translate to brief 3-4 minute scenes.

Of course, many of the chapters will need to be much longer than that (Jaime V, Catelyn VII, Arya VI and XIII, Tyrion X, Sansa VII, Jon VIII and IX, and Daenerys IV all come to mind), but none of the ten POV's have more than 13 chapters (Arya has 13, Jon 12, Tyrion 11), and making sure you get through a chapter of each of those characters every week, while including the other plotlines, would be quite manageable given 13 full hours to work with.

One season for ASOS would certainly be bursting at the seams, but I think it should be manageable.

[Padraig]

If D&D and their writers show good economy with their scripts (and we've good reason to believe they will), I could even see the season opener getting as far as Jaime III and Catelyn III (thus ending with a pair of severed body parts, one fatal, one not so much) with Sam the Slayer thrown in for good measure.

I'm confused. You think they would just concentrate on Jaime and Catelyn in the opening episode? Cat 3 and Jaime 3 are the 21st and 22nd chapters in the book, so they'd have to skip a ton of other chapters.

[Edward the Great]

Who says they need to cover all of the chapters? I think they could cut out a lot of Arya's material. Arya's POV in aCoK is my favorite in the entire series. But it gets overlong in aSoS and wouldn't make for great television. There's a lot of other material that could also be cut.

[Padraig]

Who says they need to cover all of the chapters? I think they could cut out a lot of Arya's material. Arya's POV in aCoK is my favorite in the entire series. But it gets overlong in aSoS and wouldn't make for great television. There's a lot of other material that could also be cut.

Oh yes. They are bound to not show every part of every chapter. Depends on how many episodes they have. Not that there isn't some great Arya material in aSoS. Meeting the BwB, the Twins and rediscovering Needle.

[Paxter]

however, at least when this is done you get an ending, the way deadwood left of still leaves me bitter.

It's funny that, as time goes on, I get less and less pissed off about Deadwood's ending.

It some ways it actually comes to a pretty satisfying conclusion:

- Hearst was unable to destroy Deadwood's sense of community, despite "winning" in an economic sense.

- Tolliver, who co-operated with the Hearst (the "winner"), is the one left most unsatisfied and unfulfilled at the end of the series because he is not really part of the Deadwood "family".

- Sol is mayor of Deadwood, and you get the sense that between Sol, Al, Seth and co. they will be able to thwart future power grabs from Yankton.

[Ser Greguh]

I'm confused. You think they would just concentrate on Jaime and Catelyn in the opening episode? Cat 3 and Jaime 3 are the 21st and 22nd chapters in the book, so they'd have to skip a ton of other chapters.

Skipped chapters could be revisited later, and I think those 6 chapters have enough action to fill maybe 18-20 minutes of screen time (that's giving a good 2-3 minutes for the duel between Brienne and Jaime). Plenty of time to catch up with everyone else. In any case, my point was not to offer a specific suggestion or even the most dramatically apt suggestion but to point out that you can fly through a ton of material in an hour's time, particularly when the material is as sprawling as the first third of Book III gets (we have lots of people either wandering through woods or static in King's Landing), they should be able to cover a phenomenal amount of ground to leave more time for the final third of the book, which I could easily see taking 5-6 episodes.