The final 1.5 seasons of GoT left a very bitter taste. I have had tv heartbreak in terms of cancellations (particularly Carnivale hit hard), and disappointing final seasons. Regarding the latter, some you could see coming from afar (Lost), while others simply missed the mark (Battlestar Galactica). However, I never felt like the writers simply gave up on their shows, but either had gotten themselves in a mess they could not write themselves out of (in part due to a different tv format), and/or started leaning too far into the mythology of a series, and lost sight of what truly mattered in terms of character development (the cylon reveal was jumping the shark on a totally different level). While I did not like the final seasons of such shows, I can respect the effort, and ideas, and can still rewatch them. For GoT, the laziness, complete disregard for the carefully build characters, and the constant insulting of the audience's intelligence was a shock, and I have not rewatched a single episode of a series I truly loved. Granted, the quality after season 4 was dipping, but there were some amazing highs including 'Winds of Winter', 'the Door', and 'Hardhome', which had me confident that they would more or less stick the landing. This proved that D&D could make good tv beyond GRRM's books, but seem to have gotten tired and/or bored along the way.
Long story short, I am still (unreasonably) angry at GoT's final seasons, and a bit apprehensive about House of the Dragon, but these are different writers, and include a guy who directed some of GoT's best episodes. So, for at least a few episodes, I will be giving it a chance. Have not read much about it, and the early reviews seem more or less positive. Only worrying remarks are the lack of charismatic characters (I hope it does not mean that HotD is not funny), and GRRM stating that everyone is 'grey' in terms of morality. Anyway, looking forward to your reviews, and I hope the comment section manages to stay spoiler free.
First off I have to say I'm not a natural born Swords & Sorcery Person, I read the first four books of GoT, got bored by the Greyjoys, and never picked them back up. Read The Hobbit, but never cared to dive into the larger stories at play; the extent of my fantasy viewing started with He-Man the cartoon and ended with Willow is what I'm saying. So I'm not exactly chomping at the bit for more GoT or LotR, although HotD will probably be a more enjoyable watch since I can handle pretty much any genre as long as the story and characters are well developed (Succession could be set in Westeros as far as I'm concerned, albeit a lot funnier, for example). Rings of Power I fully expect to be a meandering story with too many characters, man, they really pissed me off after the Hobbit movies to the point I don't even know how long i'll last with this new show haha. Anyways, glad you guys are covering them and will chime in if I have anything interesting to add to the discussions.
I started caring about TV with LOST, and starting writing about TV for fan sites for fun with Game of Thrones. If nothing else, while I don't know yet if I am feeling excited or still burnt out (for what its worth, I read Fire and Blood a couple weeks ago and found it pretty engaging), I know that I am planning to take some time post-grad to just get back into the habit of writing for myself again. And this show, no matter its quality, is inspiring me to do that. The last thing I wrote like this outside of academia was for S2 of GoT (2012), so a decade out from that familiar headspace feels kind of nice.
As one of the few people who thinks the last season of Game of Thrones is Good, Actually and as someone who read and enjoyed Fire and Blood, I'm looking forward to House of the Dragon. There are a couple things I could see being stumbling blocks and the trailers haven't been 100% inspiring, but the plot itself is solid and should lend itself to the kind of storytelling that people enjoyed about GoT. More importantly, it has a beginning, middle, and end to build towards, which is more than can be said about the original. While this particular story only makes up a portion of Fire and Blood, all the big beats are already there (and almost certainly in more detail than whatever GRRM gave Benioff and Weiss to work on with regards to that story's endgame), with some wiggle room left to let the story evolve in how they connect to each other. Here's hoping it works out! But if nothing else, at least there’s a new Ramin Djawadi score to listen to.
I think I'm watching House of of the Dragons out of morbid curiosity than actual excitement. There was some talk of getting our old GoT watch group back together but I can't commit to it yet because I'm not sure I'll like the show. I didn't hate the ending of GoT the way a lot of folks did (or at least, folks did online) but it certainly didn't get me amped for a spin-off years later.
Ahhh cultural learnings. I believe I started reading your lost reviews on cultural learnings and all these years later here we are. Amazing, thank you for continuing on Substack.
I am going to out myself as the ultimate casual fan. I watched all of GoT in real time, but had no interest in reading the books. It took me forever to remember character names. I enjoyed the show overall because of the characters, the political machinations and the soap opera of it all. I didn’t love the final season but was flummoxed by the angry reaction to it. I distinctly remember seeing a video of Aaron Rodgers ranting about the ending (and my mind went to how fans of the Green Bay Packers probably think that way about his performance on the field) which tells you how massive a cultural moment it was. Honestly? It’s a happy memory. Everyone just arguing about a TV show. A nice break from the current events of 2019, and of course the last amusing internet moment before the Dark Times hit in 2020.
I am not that excited about this new show. I watched the trailer and sighed, who cares? The reviews seem to range from “it’s okay” to “it’s kinda boring”. However I will watch. In addition to this Substack coverage, my whole family is going to watch and then discuss it over Zoom (we just finished Pachinko). It is kind of a phenomenon. And watching an episode one week at a time won’t be too terrible, hopefully. As others have said, I really hope it’s funny. But we’ll see!
The final 1.5 seasons of GoT left a very bitter taste. I have had tv heartbreak in terms of cancellations (particularly Carnivale hit hard), and disappointing final seasons. Regarding the latter, some you could see coming from afar (Lost), while others simply missed the mark (Battlestar Galactica). However, I never felt like the writers simply gave up on their shows, but either had gotten themselves in a mess they could not write themselves out of (in part due to a different tv format), and/or started leaning too far into the mythology of a series, and lost sight of what truly mattered in terms of character development (the cylon reveal was jumping the shark on a totally different level). While I did not like the final seasons of such shows, I can respect the effort, and ideas, and can still rewatch them. For GoT, the laziness, complete disregard for the carefully build characters, and the constant insulting of the audience's intelligence was a shock, and I have not rewatched a single episode of a series I truly loved. Granted, the quality after season 4 was dipping, but there were some amazing highs including 'Winds of Winter', 'the Door', and 'Hardhome', which had me confident that they would more or less stick the landing. This proved that D&D could make good tv beyond GRRM's books, but seem to have gotten tired and/or bored along the way.
Long story short, I am still (unreasonably) angry at GoT's final seasons, and a bit apprehensive about House of the Dragon, but these are different writers, and include a guy who directed some of GoT's best episodes. So, for at least a few episodes, I will be giving it a chance. Have not read much about it, and the early reviews seem more or less positive. Only worrying remarks are the lack of charismatic characters (I hope it does not mean that HotD is not funny), and GRRM stating that everyone is 'grey' in terms of morality. Anyway, looking forward to your reviews, and I hope the comment section manages to stay spoiler free.
First off I have to say I'm not a natural born Swords & Sorcery Person, I read the first four books of GoT, got bored by the Greyjoys, and never picked them back up. Read The Hobbit, but never cared to dive into the larger stories at play; the extent of my fantasy viewing started with He-Man the cartoon and ended with Willow is what I'm saying. So I'm not exactly chomping at the bit for more GoT or LotR, although HotD will probably be a more enjoyable watch since I can handle pretty much any genre as long as the story and characters are well developed (Succession could be set in Westeros as far as I'm concerned, albeit a lot funnier, for example). Rings of Power I fully expect to be a meandering story with too many characters, man, they really pissed me off after the Hobbit movies to the point I don't even know how long i'll last with this new show haha. Anyways, glad you guys are covering them and will chime in if I have anything interesting to add to the discussions.
I started caring about TV with LOST, and starting writing about TV for fan sites for fun with Game of Thrones. If nothing else, while I don't know yet if I am feeling excited or still burnt out (for what its worth, I read Fire and Blood a couple weeks ago and found it pretty engaging), I know that I am planning to take some time post-grad to just get back into the habit of writing for myself again. And this show, no matter its quality, is inspiring me to do that. The last thing I wrote like this outside of academia was for S2 of GoT (2012), so a decade out from that familiar headspace feels kind of nice.
As one of the few people who thinks the last season of Game of Thrones is Good, Actually and as someone who read and enjoyed Fire and Blood, I'm looking forward to House of the Dragon. There are a couple things I could see being stumbling blocks and the trailers haven't been 100% inspiring, but the plot itself is solid and should lend itself to the kind of storytelling that people enjoyed about GoT. More importantly, it has a beginning, middle, and end to build towards, which is more than can be said about the original. While this particular story only makes up a portion of Fire and Blood, all the big beats are already there (and almost certainly in more detail than whatever GRRM gave Benioff and Weiss to work on with regards to that story's endgame), with some wiggle room left to let the story evolve in how they connect to each other. Here's hoping it works out! But if nothing else, at least there’s a new Ramin Djawadi score to listen to.
I think I'm watching House of of the Dragons out of morbid curiosity than actual excitement. There was some talk of getting our old GoT watch group back together but I can't commit to it yet because I'm not sure I'll like the show. I didn't hate the ending of GoT the way a lot of folks did (or at least, folks did online) but it certainly didn't get me amped for a spin-off years later.
Ahhh cultural learnings. I believe I started reading your lost reviews on cultural learnings and all these years later here we are. Amazing, thank you for continuing on Substack.
I am going to out myself as the ultimate casual fan. I watched all of GoT in real time, but had no interest in reading the books. It took me forever to remember character names. I enjoyed the show overall because of the characters, the political machinations and the soap opera of it all. I didn’t love the final season but was flummoxed by the angry reaction to it. I distinctly remember seeing a video of Aaron Rodgers ranting about the ending (and my mind went to how fans of the Green Bay Packers probably think that way about his performance on the field) which tells you how massive a cultural moment it was. Honestly? It’s a happy memory. Everyone just arguing about a TV show. A nice break from the current events of 2019, and of course the last amusing internet moment before the Dark Times hit in 2020.
I am not that excited about this new show. I watched the trailer and sighed, who cares? The reviews seem to range from “it’s okay” to “it’s kinda boring”. However I will watch. In addition to this Substack coverage, my whole family is going to watch and then discuss it over Zoom (we just finished Pachinko). It is kind of a phenomenon. And watching an episode one week at a time won’t be too terrible, hopefully. As others have said, I really hope it’s funny. But we’ll see!