Originally written June 27, 2016

Season 6 of Game of Thrones could have gone any possible way. I don’t recall any other instance in entertainment where an adaptation of something has actually surpassed its source material before it was finished, but in this case the show has. Up until this point, Game of Thrones was adapting material from the books in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series. The book series has two more books that need to come out before it’s finished, but since author George R.R. Martin is slow to write them, the series has now reached the point where it’s adapted everything it’s needed to from the books. We’ve now reached the point where the story of the show is moving past how far the books have gotten, and so really it could have gone any possible way, since there was no written source material to fall back on.

To be completely fair, I think the showrunners have done a pretty great job of keeping the show going as strong as before on their own. I felt that season 5 of the show slightly dipped in quality, and so I actually find season 6 to be an improvement over the previous season. At this point in a TV series that has a continuous storyline, I don’t think it’s right to talk about specific plot details for anyone that would want to avoid spoilers for it. However, I think that the show has managed to bring some of its characters back into more interesting story directions this season.

Since I don’t want to mention too many specific plot details, I’ll just give my general feelings on the season. As I said, the show does feel like it’s improved upon its previous slower season, but I found this wasn’t true all of the time. Some characters’ storylines were simply continuations of where they were at in season 5 rather than finding them somewhere new, and so I felt that some of those storylines were still a little too slow a lot of the time (mentioning storylines for people like Tyrion or Cersei to be specific). However, since some of these plot lines were continuations from season 5, I did find that the show was able to give us more payoffs this season, which was very welcome.

I think if I’m going to label my biggest specific problem with season 6, it’s that it’s trying to balance too much. While Game of Thrones has always been a show that follows many different characters in many different locations, it seemed like there was a much larger amount of storylines to follow. I think this is because we’re still following a lot of the storylines that we were last season, but the show is also bringing back certain storylines that haven’t been heard from in a little while (such as for Bran or stuff with the Greyjoys) and so it just winded up feeling like a lot at once. It isn’t inherently a problem for a show to have a lot going on at once, but I think the trouble that Game of Thrones ran into this season is that we only got to see slices of storylines each episode (and then sometimes not seeing that character again for another episode or two), and so for some storylines it took until the end of the season for any real progress to be made. An example of this is for Arya, who finds herself doing much of the same thing she was doing last season, until the second half of the season where we finally see some real developments being made.

I find with reviews like this I wind up being very critical of what I’m reviewing. However, I don’t want it to come off like I wasn’t a fan of this season. Rather, I’m being so critical of it because of how much I’ve loved, and still do love, this show. I don’t care as much about pointing out problems in things that I don’t love, and so I’m only being critical because I really want to see the show make sure it delivers final seasons that are as amazing as its earlier ones. While there may have been some storylines and moments that I didn’t care about as much this season, for the most part season 6 is still yet another amazing season of the show. Some things do take a little while to get going due to how much is being balanced on the show’s plate, but the showrunners actually do a very good job of making a lot of interesting things happen in each of the 10 episodes, and in the end the final few episodes are just as good as you would expect. The season ends on a really big high towards the end and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

4.5/5