1. Sirwootalot

   9

   This is easily the best show on TV right now, and one of the best of all time. The acting is consistently solid, the plot so intricate that it's nearly overwhelming, and the characterization is deeper, more realistic, and richer not only than any other show besides The Wire, but deeper/more realistic/richer than half of the real people I've met. Epic in every sense of the word, and just as likely to be surprisingly touching as it is to be gut-wrenchingly brutal.… Expand

   • Helpful? 40 of 42 users said Yes.
2. OneVoice

   8

   Great show. Much better book. The first season of this show stayed pretty true to the book, which is something I really loved about it. The second season moves quite far away from the book = disappointing. Despite all that, this is still one of the best shows on TV, it's just hard to compare it to a series of books that I'd say are the best fantasy books ever written.… Expand

   • Helpful? 1 of 3 users said Yes.
3. shoeone

   7

   This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I am a big Game of Thrones fan and have read all the books. That said, I am finding Season Two a little disappointing. This is perhaps inevitable, as the producers and writers have to follow (mostly) George R.R. Martin's increasingly meandering narrative. In the first season, there were five distinct families: The Starks, the Night's Watch, The Targaryens, the Lannisters and Baratheons. And there were five distinct locations: Winterfell, The Wall, King's Landing, The Eyrie, and the East. All the characters fit fairly well into one or more of these families and locations. As a result, each episode could spend 15 minutes or more on an individual location or family. In Season Two, we are in the first stages of the disintegration of George R.R. Martin's narrative. Book Two, Clash of Kings, is still compelling, but by Book Three, which we should reach in Season Three, the wheels will have come off for good and the producers and writers are going to have some serious decisions (and triage) to perform. In Season Two, the number of characters has already expanded radically, as have locations. We now have the Greyjoys of Pyke, the Baratheons of Dragonstone, and fairly soon we will encounter the Baratheons, Tyrells and Martells of the South, as well as the Tullys of Riverrun and will make the acquaintance of several more loathsome Freys. This is barely supportable in a book, but not in a TV miniseries. As a result, we are already losing characters and locales (anybody notice Sansa, Rickon, or the Vale of Arryn recently?) and some key characters, such as Littlefinger are temporarily revived in pointless scenes that did not occur in the book, just to remind us that they exist and will play an important part later in the story. Fifteen-minute segments are gone, and now we are down to five or ten-minute scenes. Soon, with the proliferation of characters, we won't even have that, and the story will become more and more disjointed, just like George R.R. Martin's books. As time goes on, Martin's story becomes more dreamlike, with no beginning and no end, just a frittering away of the narrative in pointless blind alleys and ever more complicated stories with more and more and still more characters and locales added to the mix, and obvious plot pathways ignored. Martin's books are a work in progress, and they will probably never be finished, as Martin has been suffering from periodic writer's block for the past several years. The obvious conclusion to the story, a few volumes after Book Five, should be the confrontation of Fire and Ice, represented by Daenerys and her dragons on one side, and the White Walkers and Wights on the other, fighting over a Westeros devastated by the increasingly chaotic and pointless struggle of pretenders to the Iron Throne. But at the end of Book Five, Winter has still not come, Daenerys has still not invaded Westeros, the White Walkers have not come south of The Wall, and the number of pretenders to the Iron Throne just grows and grows. This is a dream that has no end, and the producers of Game of Thrones are going to have some major decisions to make. I don't envy them. With regard to the current season, I would like to see a lot more of Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), who justly has top billing now, and a lot more of Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) too, who has only gotten started. Weâ… Expand

   • Helpful? 2 of 3 users said Yes.
4. Trolovski

   4

   I almost lost all hope for GOT with this season because it wasn't half as good as the first and the third season (so far). Most of the writing is terrible, we can see a complete misunderstanding of GOT/ASOIAF lore, too many sex scenes that served no purpose, too many boring fillers that replaced fun parts from the books. Just one example (out of many): they decided that Sandor&Sansa scenes are unnecessary, deleted most of them just to replace them with Ros, original HBO's character that served no purpose. In the first and third season, I liked most deviations and every single change felt justified. But not in this season. You know it's bad writing when you are looking at some scenes and realize that even you could have done it better! That change from the books with Gendry in Season 3(I won't spoil)? They had taken a huge risk with that one, but it was brilliant and I welcomed it, while season 2 was full of random and stupid decisions that degraded the quality of the show, especially with Dany who became loud and halfwit yelling empty threats (thus, my top favorite character became my least favorite). You know that the writers regretted their choices when they do everything to correct them afterwards, and that's what HBO's writers are doing in the third season (and I am thankful). The worst part of the second season was The House of Thee Undying (budgets and spoilers because of the prophecies are not an excuse!) which was completely forgettable and boring, and painful to book readers who watched one of their favorite chapter and character being degraded to an extremely low quality. You don't have to read ASOIAF series to recognize some seriously bad writing within The House of the Undying.
   
   However, this season was watchable and even had some great scenes. I applaud HBO for original, well written scenes with Arya and Tywin that weren't in the books but helped us to understand Tywin and his motives, helped us see that he is just as human as everyone else. Scenes with Grejoy were well made and even the deviations I didn't like felt justified (especially when watching the third season).
   The only good episode in this season (from start to finish) was Blackwater, written by George R.R. Martin. It had it's weakness, but it was a nice refreshment.
   
   Overall 4.5/10, I guess that HBO's writers were drunk… Expand

   • Helpful? 0 of 0 users said Yes.

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