The first season that I've watched week by week - at this stage, any other approach seems doomed to run into spoilers - which obviously made for a different viewing experience. Plus, at this stage in the show's run (and mythology), every little
thing seems, and usually is, freighted with significance, making for
closer viewing than past seasons have called for. (Speaking of which, normally I'm aggressively indifferent to the idea that this blog is written for anyone other than myself but, obviously, if anyone is reading this who might care to avoid spoilers from the series, they should probably stop reading now.)
By the start of season 7, the show had already gathered so much story that, pretty much no matter what, it was going to make for compelling viewing. And, unsurprisingly, the major through-line of the season is a big consolidation of characters, settings and plots, which brings plenty of pleasures as characters are brought face to face with each other - sometimes for the first time, sometimes in reunions following lots of action and development since last meetings - and the narrative streamlines.
But that also creates some difficulties, with the plotting starting to creak a little: literally everyone who you'd expect to still be alive until near the end, still is (and then some), with lots of sometimes implausible last minute rescues, and there are definitely some developments that don't, well, develop, or land, with the resonance that they ought to because of the rush. The second-last episode, which plays out the quintessential fantasy trope of a fellowship of heroes by scooping up nearly all of the loose fighting types on Westeros (Jon, Jorah, Tormund, Gendry, Beric, Thoros and the Hound) and sending them north of the wall together on a quest, epitomises this - it would have been much better with more space to breathe.
On the upside, though, the dragons (finally unleased on a battlefield) are suitably destructive, the little scene where Arya and Brienne spar is one of the most exciting of the whole series despite the absence of life and death stakes, the season finale is overall quite satisfying, and really the whole of season 7 is basically set up for the next and final season, for which I have high hopes, not least because there is a huge amount of built-up investment and associative and emotional capital associated with pretty much everyone who's still around - and have even come round to accepting that the Jon + Daenerys (+ everyone else) team-up to beat the White Walkers arc doesn't necessarily have to be uninteresting, depending on what else they do with it ... after all there's no rule, including internally to the logic of the show (or books, to the extent they're still relevant), that says that all conventions of the genre must be subverted.
(1-6, 6 again)
By the start of season 7, the show had already gathered so much story that, pretty much no matter what, it was going to make for compelling viewing. And, unsurprisingly, the major through-line of the season is a big consolidation of characters, settings and plots, which brings plenty of pleasures as characters are brought face to face with each other - sometimes for the first time, sometimes in reunions following lots of action and development since last meetings - and the narrative streamlines.
But that also creates some difficulties, with the plotting starting to creak a little: literally everyone who you'd expect to still be alive until near the end, still is (and then some), with lots of sometimes implausible last minute rescues, and there are definitely some developments that don't, well, develop, or land, with the resonance that they ought to because of the rush. The second-last episode, which plays out the quintessential fantasy trope of a fellowship of heroes by scooping up nearly all of the loose fighting types on Westeros (Jon, Jorah, Tormund, Gendry, Beric, Thoros and the Hound) and sending them north of the wall together on a quest, epitomises this - it would have been much better with more space to breathe.
On the upside, though, the dragons (finally unleased on a battlefield) are suitably destructive, the little scene where Arya and Brienne spar is one of the most exciting of the whole series despite the absence of life and death stakes, the season finale is overall quite satisfying, and really the whole of season 7 is basically set up for the next and final season, for which I have high hopes, not least because there is a huge amount of built-up investment and associative and emotional capital associated with pretty much everyone who's still around - and have even come round to accepting that the Jon + Daenerys (+ everyone else) team-up to beat the White Walkers arc doesn't necessarily have to be uninteresting, depending on what else they do with it ... after all there's no rule, including internally to the logic of the show (or books, to the extent they're still relevant), that says that all conventions of the genre must be subverted.
(1-6, 6 again)
