Season 1 compared to Season 2.

[The hairy bear]

From reading this thread, It seems to me that the main reason people have for disliking season 2 is because they thought it deviated too much from the book and/or it was too dis-jointed

I agree with your assessment that those two are the main arguments of the proponents that season 2 is weaker than the first.

For the first point although there were some bad choices made in the way they adapted it I think that we can't criticise the fact that they changed things as the tv show and the book are different things and It wasn't a case of D+D completely ignoring what GRRM wrote and going mad with power but them making the decisions they think are best for their show

"Mad with power" with be an overstatement, but I think that we'll agree that they got more confident with the adaptation and became more "daring" when changing things. Of course they do what they think is best for the show, just as critics point out what they think are the worse parts of it. I for one think that changing thinks was a necessity, but alas the material they came up with is not up to the par.

The second point is more vaild but thats a proble that's naturally gonna happen when adapting ACOK which is in general a more disjointed book.

While it is true that ACOK is more "disjointed" than AGOT, there are not many readers who consider ACOK a "disjointed" book. I honestly think that D&D could have done a better job in transmitting the sense that all the stories are connected. In fact, I'm convinced they noticed this and they will be doing a much better job in S3 in this regard.

Hmm, I personally think this did work quite well as instead of freeing jaime because of the news about bran and Rickon she did it becaause she had been manipulated into doing it by LF at renly's camp and I think this was a good showcase of how manipulative LF can be.

That may have worked to showcase how manipulative LF can be, but devaluated Catelyn as a character making her act as a fool. What the delaying of the news of the kids deaths did for Robb is even worse. He came up as dumb, egoistic and immature in a single stroke.

[JoePescisBoss]

Hopefully, Season 3 can get just the right balance of the different storys without feeling as dis-jointed as season 2 sometimes did, from the trailers released so far I think it's gonna kick both series asses :drunk:

Im pretty sure its gonna be the best one yet, judging by the Readers of SoS and judgind by David and Dans comments - they have waited for this season from the beginning on. And because they can focus a lot more on the characters with stretching the 3rd book into 2 seasons.

Season 2 felt a little rushed. Blackwater(ep 9) focused on one story and it was fantastic.

[Pinkie Baelish]

I'm not really sure whether Season 3 is going to work as well as a tv season as the first too. Yes, the entire season will be filled with action and character development, but since they're adapting 2/3s of a book, there are certain important characters that will have arcs that seem unfinished. Take Tyrion and Cersei for example. That's another hurdle D and D need to get over. I'm really hoping I'm wrong, and I know this season will have some of the best moments yet, but I'm not entirely convinced that it would function as well as a cohesive, standalone season of television.

[bear_from_the_maidenfair]

When I first watched season 2, I thought it suffered in comparison to season 1. But I recently rewatched some of season 1 and actually found the first few episodes a bit slow - it doesn't really get going until episode 5 IMO. Season 2 has a lot going for it: Blackwater (probably the best episode of the show so far), the terrific Theon arc, and those great scenes between Arya and Tywin. On the other hand, as another poster noted, the Dany and Jon scenes in season 2 were pretty bad and dragged down the season. (Dany's storyline in particular paled in comparison to season 1, when she had one of the more dramatic storylines.) I think I'd give a slight edge to season 1 (as far as climaxes go, nothing can top Ned's beheading), although I really enjoyed both seasons.

[Victarious]

I used to think Season 2 was way better than the first on initial viewings. There were just so many cool moments like Theon's arc, the shenanigans in KL and the riot, not to mention Blackwater. But I think I might give the slight edge to Season 1 just because it felt less choppy and spent more time on characters like Jon and Dany, who are 2 of my favorites in the show. If you were to compare the screen time of the characters in both seasons, I would say Jon had about 100 minutes in Season 1 while just under 50 in Season 2. That's quite fucking terrible. Yes, S2 had more characters, more subplots, a lot other stuff to focus on... but even then the average episode ran at 52-53 minutes while S1's average was about 56. 4 minutes an episode really do make a difference.

Anyways, S1 was just an overall good story with 3 maybe 5 plot lines running smoothly throughout the 10 episodes and the climax to those arcs were a lot more satisfying.

So S1, but really S2 is not that bad. It's a little worse after I've rewatched it and given it some thought, but it's not 'bad.' It's easy to hate on it. I don't know anyone who can hate S1 though. And I agree, S1 didn't pick up until about episode 6. So it is slow, but it paid off in the end and there wasn't one episode that didn't satisfy me one way or the other.

I hope S3 will be even better than S2 AND S1.