OT: Game of Thrones
I'm interested to see what everyone else thought about tonight's episode. Obviously Grandma Tyrell was hilarious as always and she stole the show. Everything going on with Daenerys is awesome and so is seeing her in the tub. Good episode with some great scenes and character development.
My one question, why in the world did Sam run off leaving that dagger behind?
I absolutely guarantee that the show will get a season 5. With the amount of money they are making on DVD sales, the viewership that just keeps growing, and (no spoilers) the events that I can only guess will happen next season garnering even more viewers, there is no chance that HBO will end this show that prematurely. They will at least get to the end of the fifth book before they even consider slowing down. I feel like the only threat to the show right now would be actors realizing its value and demanding more money but just looking at most of the actors' credits before GOT I find it hard to believe that they would risk losing this gig just to hold HBO over the coals. They have done a very good job of finding actors that fit the characters so well and yet aren't big name actors, which is crucial with so many different characters figuring prominently in the story
the showrunners did mention in an interview that they got HBO to add an additional 4-5 minutes to every episode, which basically means they get an 11th episode in terms of total minutes for the season, so there is that. And as previously mentioned, seasons 3 and 4 are book 3 of the book series so there's that too.
I think that they can't go for more than 10 episodes probably for budgetary reasons. The show costs a lot of money to make because of all of the different locations used for filming, plus with its huge cast that's a lot of actors to pay for. Also, there's more CGI on this show than on other HBO shows, so it costs a lot more money to make each episode. Although, HBO is making a lot of money off of this show's DVD sales so maybe in future seasons they'll add some more episodes, who knows?
I believe it is budgetary, so maybe if we keep giving them more ratings, they'll have the budget to add more episodes down the line. I do really feel that 11-12 episodes per season would be a great medium between the 10 episodes/book and 20 episodes for book 3 that they are currently working with. Would maybe cut out some of the slower bits, but give enough time to go through all the major events.
They've obviously made an executive decision to give Old Lady Tyrell a much larger role in the show than the book. I can't say enough how much I approve of this.
Getting Diana Rigg for it was probably a big reason behind the expanded role and I agree as she was one of my favortie side characters in the books(although I am extremely disappointed that Left and Right have not been included as of yet).
So wait, with everyone saying "bummed about it not being on next week" does that mean there's not going to be a "Behind the Candelabra" open thread next Sunday night?
/s