Game of Thrones

It's a lot to digest but well worth the effort. [20 Apr - 3 May 2015, p.13]

There are so many fine performances here it’s difficult to single out just a few.... Benioff and Weiss have become inordinately adept at juggling an almost dizzying assortment of plots, but the manner in which those narratives intersect this time around has only enriched the show.

The show also feels more nuanced. If season 4 was like a giant exhaled breath, then season 5 is an inhaled one. The story beats are more deliberate. There's also a sharpened sense of building anticipation--or impending doom.

It has been top-notch from the start--but in the new episodes available for review, the storytelling is more focused and straightforward, less aggressively confusing for casual viewers.... All you need to like to enjoy this unique series is exceptional and ambitious TV storytelling.

Game of Thrones, partly because it’s as cold-blooded as its characters in treating personnel turnover as the natural order, seems to have little trouble keeping its pedal to the metal.

This isn't the best four-episode stretch the series has ever had--as with most cable dramas, the ends of GoT seasons tend to be stronger than the starts--but there's a sense of real forward momentum to the proceedings that hasn't always been there in the past. Again and again, my pulse quickened as I watched these four hours.

There are so many characters and storylines in this complex series that to keep their arcs moving dramatically forward, writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, creators of the series and custodians of novelist George R.R. Martin’s world, have to parse out so many bits of dialogue and scenes to so many different actors that large chunks of a season often feel like they bounce around frantically, spending little fragments of time with one character and racing across Westeros to service another ad infinitum.

Epic in scope, basic in motivations, it will fill the next 10 Sundays with “appointment viewing” of the highest realm.

With that ticking clock in mind, Benioff and Weiss are improvising with confidence and a keen eye on character. You can see stories being streamlined.

It is a triumph of superb storytelling.

Beyond noting that occasional tic of too-self-conscious nudity, though, it's hard to overpraise a show that's tamed Martin's tale just enough to make it filmable and matched extraordinary characters with extraordinary actors while finding things to say about justice, religion, governance and the power--and limits--of compassion.

It is still a magnificent beast: bold, confident and venturing off in new directions.

Quibbles aside, Game of Thrones is still remarkable for both the scrupulousness and the lavishness of its production, beautiful to look at and mostly engaging to follow, though there is something of the accountant’s method in Mr. Martin’s fantasy--progress through constant addition--that transfers into the television show.

Breathtaking, heartbreaking, awe-inspiring and addictive, it remains the single most remarkable feat of television, possibly ever, increasingly admirable for its ability to grow rather than simply sustain.

Season 5 doesn’t feel like more of the same; it feels like a Game of Thrones played at a new, more intense level.

The level of craft and intelligence is so high here that Thrones earns the right to think of itself as doing for sword and sorcery what Coppola's Godfather trilogy did for the gangster picture: taking it seriously as modern myth without sapping it of old-fashioned entertainment value.

In the four episodes provided for preview, the action seldom lags, but just when we think we’re in for a fun ride this season, something darkens the sun.

In the fifth season, the story has been distilled to just the moments of pathos and characterization and gorgeous direction that make the story work.

Everything that was always good about Game of Thrones is still good. The ensemble cast remains one of TV's richest, from top to bottom, and even actors who seemed weak in the past (like Sophie Turner, who plays increasingly embittered Sansa Stark) continue to rise to the level of much better material.

Thrones exults in the unexpected.

We have fifth-season banquet of delights spread before us.... With each season, that load is spread out more and more, with young players coming into their own and crafty veterans added to the cast. The storytelling also gets stronger and more assured, pushing Game of Thrones to greater and grander heights.

While its first few episodes skew dry, concerned largely with the establishment of allegiances, they do manage to keep us connected to those who have managed to survive thus far in the battle for power.

The unforeseeable effects and ostensible curse of murdering have always proved key to the show's tension, and as the story continues to build a kinetic rhythm and streamline the drama, the thunderous chaos stirred up by each life taken resonates all the more loudly.

So the story moves slowly, focusing less on the game-changing moments that often come early in the season (Joffrey dies! The Unsullied revolt!) and more on long-term strategy. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it finally brings people (and story lines) together in this ever-sprawling world.

The first four episodes of Game Of Thrones’ fifth season are typically rich and rewarding, but for those seeking reassurance as the show heads for uncharted territory, there’s as much to love as there is to fear.

It's a more compelling, faster-paced and less frustrating journey than fans were treated to in “A Feast for Crows” and “A Dance With Dragons,” the novels that line up with the current action in Westeros’ winter-is-coming world.

Despite flitting between seven settings, the episode is as dark and compelling as ever, hinting at a looming shift in power and perspective.