Board Thread:TV Show Discussion/@comment-114.71.100.55-20160510074252/@comment-5014364-20160513005235

They didn't need seven seasons, originally SAID eight seasons but later denied they ever did despite being public statements in print, but now have been renewed through Season 8 anyway.

Condensing two books' worth of material into Season 5 was absurd. Though other problems with the Dorne subplot were actually due to not even thinking they could squeeze it in until after they finished filming Season 4, so poor last minute planning is also to blame.

Biggest problems in Season 5 were:


 * "Anything touching the North and the Boltons"
 * Merging Sansa with the Bolton storyline might not have been a good idea, though we know they at least focused effort onto it
 * Stannis, after he left the Wall, was badly rushed to the point of black comedy in the Season 5 finale.
 * The Mutiny at Castle Black was bad because they really just had it randomly appear, without plot logic, instead of setting up that it was due to the Boltons (why the hell would Thorne mutiny against Jon for letting wildlings through the Wall, after Thorne himself let them through the Wall? That's just lazy writing).
 * Brienne was sidelined though this may have been inevitable


 * Dorne subplot was actually a good idea on paper to send Jaime, but was horribly executed due to being thrown in at the last minute and having limited screentime to actually develop it. Horrible writing even compared to Benioff and Weiss's normal standards of generally good dialogue.

In Season 6,


 * The Mutiny at Castle Black did indeed turn out to be a writing failure. No attempt was made to use Stannis's defeat as a reason, the TV writers just doubled down on "because of the wildlings" even though this makes no sense.  The mutineers had no logical motivations.  The writing was a failure - and good acting and direction can only make up so much for this.
 * The good news is that this is more of a holdover mistake from Season 5, and it has no long-term effects. It's compartmentalized, like lack of Tysha at Tywin's death.  Now that it's done with the mistake of not thinking out the motivations doesn't really affect the rest of Season 6.
 * Stannis being badly condensed was a problem last season but it's in the past now.
 * So far at least, the Sansa condensation wasn't really an issue in her brief appearances so far, though of course we'll see how that goes. Looking up though.
 * Brienne gets more to do.

So on the one hand, the problems with "condensing the North stuff (including the mutiny against Jon)"....were NOT "redeemed", but at least moved past. They were holdover Season 5 problems and Season 6 is moving beyond them, mostly for the better.

The new ironborn material has also so far been great.

I honestly thought the heavily condensed Dorne material could have been redeemed. Now it's a complete write-off. To the point that many reviewers think Benioff and Weiss killed off half of them (the ones people liked) because they were washing their hands of the plotline as a mistake to try to include due to time limitations.

What horrifies me is if Benioff and Weiss weren't just throwing away the Dorne plot, but actually think this is somehow an improvement. Killing Doran was a silly idea, but even if they were going to do it, the plot logic was awful and forced....all worsened by what all major critics have agreed is cartoonishly terrible dialogue.

It wasn't just that Dorne was bad in "The Red Woman", it's how uneven it was: it felt like you changed channels to some other show, but then as soon as it left Dorne it snapped back into being good quality again. It just felt badly inserted and forced.

Benioff and Weiss will have to account for their failure at Dorne sooner or later.

On the whole, how is Season 6 so far?

Well...when you consider the Mutiny plot failure as a holdover from Season 5, and over with anyway....it's been better than late Season 5.

With the noted exception of Dorne, but that got SO utterly bad that we can wash our hands of it...and many think that's what the writers were doing; just plain giving up on it. But it's removed enough...

I mean just the joke "we didn't think Dorne could get worse after Season 5, then it did".