It was all of the drab and dreariness of Game of Thrones without any of the charm.
In two episodes, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is already much better.
Now I’ll wait to see how it ends, and see if it’s worth watching afterwards. After GoT ended I decided not to trust them again.
Have you read the book?
If so, bad news, the show runner has confirmed they aren’t any more time jumps, which means either he’s not even going to finish the civil war (dance of the dragons), or he’s going to replace the ending with his own bastardized fan fiction version of it.
That said, even though S02 was a disappointment, it hasn’t reached GoT S08 levels of bad, yet, so…that’s something.
What does HBO have left that Netflix will inherit? Anything interesting, or just back catalog? I wonder if Netflix will try to reboot or spin off any of the more familiar canceled properties…
Ongoing HBO shows?
The Pitt stands out first. White Lotus. We have Euphoria and The Last of Us, although I expect them to be over (finished production or far enough along) before Netflix has fully acquired them.
Dune: Prophecy will probably get cancelled, but it’s getting lucky with a second season already.
IT: Welcome to Derry will probably keep going.
The Rehearsal will continue in some form, someone will pay Nathan for his high grades at a Canadian university.
The Chair company, once acquired, probably but could go either way.
John Oliver will continue to get full creative freedom, otherwise he’ll find somewhere else to go.
Hacks will probably continue, or come to an end before the acquisition is over.
And then you have DC Studios as a whole, I can’t predict that, but it’s got legs.
And that’s just shows I’m familiar with.
Hacks should probably end on an up note. I think Euphoria is just about played out. I won’t be surprised if the upcoming season is its last. Last Of Us only has one season left unless they ignore the ratings drop and start making seasons without source material from the game. As far as DC, they just canceled Peacemaker which is bizarre.
I also wonder what the contract with George RR Martin is like — will Netflix be able to just make whatever shows/spinoffs they want from that property? I thought the momentum there was dead, but the Knight of 7 show seems to be getting positive reviews.
That’s good to hear. I really enjoyed season 1, I was enjoying season 2, although it had some problems, but really the issue was setting us up for a great finale and then just ending.
I expect season 3 to start with a bang and hopefully they don’t do that again.
Now there is a concern that some of the problems in season 2 only continue to get worse. GRRM has made it clear he thinks things are heading that way, but I’ll wait and see. I made it to the end of Game of Thrones so I can’t be hurt that bad again.
Now there is a concern that some of the problems in season 2 only continue to get worse. GRRM has made it clear he thinks things are heading that way, but I’ll wait and see.
Which problems are you referring to? Season 2 definitely had some pacing issues but I don’t recall any major systemic problems. I haven’t read the books the show is based on, so if you need to spoil the story to explain then don’t worry about it.
I’ve also not read the full story, although have read all of GRRMs “Beware the Butterflies”, which contains spoilers.
Perhaps pacing issues is the best way to look at it, but I also forgave a lot of Game of Thrones season 6 & 7 for their pacing issues, with the assumptions that the pace was off I ordered to tell the final story properly. (As we all know, it wasn’t just pacing… Or pacing issues so extreme that it ruined actual issues.)
The biggest individual scene that comes to mind in season 2 is Rhaenys & Meleys bursting through the floor. It was a cool scene, but it just seemed so out of character and reckless. It’s overall minor and I can rationalize it, but apart from the shock it felt odd.
The second big thing is Daemon. I’m not sure what he was doing all season. Part of that might just be we need to use Matt Smith since we’re paying him, but after season one his season two story just seemed so strange and weak.
I’m far from writing the show off, but season 2 was definitely weaker than season 1, and with an especially weak ending. I fully expect season 3 to win me back, especially with season four being a planned ending. But if GRRM is worried, I’m worried. He might be wrong, and I hope that for the overall story he is.
The second big thing is Daemon. I’m not sure what he was doing all season. Part of that might just be we need to use Matt Smith since we’re paying him, but after season one his season two story just seemed so strange and weak.
I’ve heard this complaint before and I don’t really understand it. I thought it was pretty clear that the entire arc of the character in Season 2 was there to build tension around his rift with Rhaenyra. His character is setup as one that is selfish and envious with desires for the throne, so there is a question mark over where his allegiance lies. This ties in with a lot of the stress that builds on Rhaenyra throughout Season 2. Her position looks increasingly weak, particularly without Daemon and his dragon, but just when it’s looking most bleak he reaffirms his loyalty to her in that pretty epic scene in the throne room at Harrenhal. I thought Season 2 was a really great comeback arc for Rhaenyra, and Daemon plays a big role in that.
I will admit that the stuff with Alys Rivers and Daemon’s hallucinations/dreams/visions(?) was quite confusing. I think any time the TV shows try to bring in this pagan stuff with the trees, seers, etc, it causes problems because they just haven’t laid any of the groundwork for a TV-only viewer to fully understand what is happening. Contributing to this confusion was that I was also aware of the concept of Targaryen madness, so I thought maybe he was just going insane. My takeaway was that this was also supposed to symbolise the internal grief he was dealing with as he wrestled with his own ambition, and that the final vision he had at the tree was sort of a confirmation of what part of him already knew to be true (that Rhaenyra should rule). Maybe this stuff distracted, rather than aided, the core character arc and that’s why people felt like he did nothing when he was actually one of the pivotal characters in Season 2.
Also I kinda disagree with this narrative that Season 2 had a weak ending. It’s a comeback arc that finishes on the comeback, it was a very suitable ending for this phase of the story. Sometimes I feel like people just want to see action and big battles, or they view the show as one big continuous story instead of one divided into smaller parts, but that’s not how I see it at all. For Season 2 to have worked as Part 2, it needed to end as it did. Starting a giant battle in one of the final episodes would have completely undermined the rest of the season. As I said, there were definitely pacing issues which contributed to a lot of padding towards the latter stages of the season (constantly cutting back to Rhaena running around doing nothing was really egregious) but I think overall it worked well to setup bigger and more direct confrontations in Season 3 and 4.
