No one is very happy. Which means it's a good compromise, I suppose.

Game of Thrones

Season 8

(SPOILERS) How many TV series that rely on ongoing plotlines – which is most of them these days – have actually arrived at a wholly satisfying conclusion? As in, one that not only surprises but pays off the investment viewers have made over (maybe) seven or eight years? I can think of a few that shocked or dazzled (Angel, The Leftovers) and some that disappointed profoundly (Lost) but most often, they end on an “okay” (reasonably satisfying, if you like) rather than on a spectacular or, conversely, enormously disappointing note. Game of Thrones may not have paid off for many vocal fans who’d accept nothing less than note-perfect rendering of certain key desired developments, but much of the season unfolded in a manner that seemed just the kind of thing I would have expected; not, on the whole, shocking, blind-siding, or (give-or-take) spectacular, but okay, or reasonably satisfying.

These okay results, though, have been an unforgiveable betrayal for some, to the extent of petitioning for the season to be remade (good luck with that) and seemingly failing to recognise that not doing what you’d hope for has been George RR Martin’s modus operandi from the first. So all those so invested in Dany’s symbolic – as a feminist icon, in a show that, per HBO mandates, has been awash with objectifying imagery from the off, ironically only curtailing such behaviour slightly in later, more vilified seasons – rise to power that they failed to pay attention to her abiding ruthlessness and dangerous sense of entitlement, were left stunned by her snap. So on that score, I have little sympathy for the idea that her “turn” needed more of a build-up to make it palatable – it wouldn’t have been as devastating if it could have been seen coming when and where it did, and the show’s remit, at least since Ned had his head chopped off, has been to shock (if that seems a contradiction to my thoughts in the first paragraph, it’s a matter of degrees; that she would turn wasn’t a shock, how she did it could be).

Which is not to say the breathless charge forward of the last two seasons hasn’t resulted in sometimes perfunctory plotting and characterisation. But nothing in Eight seemed remotely on the level of stupidity as Season Seven’s Beyond the Wall. And the slow pace of the first two episodes was welcome, allowing for reunions that, in some cases, we’ve been waiting a batch of seasons for. The perceived disappointment of The Long Night? Well, the mistake would be assuming the Night King was everything to the show in the first place, rather than a convenient device to up the stakes and then dispense with in order to get back to the main thrones-jostling business. That much should have been clear back when his origins were related with borderline flippant casualness in Season Six. And then only compounded by the discovery that, if you Phantom Menace the Night King, all his minions go to sleep.

Certainly, there was a sense of slowly building scenarios and gambits gone adrift once Benioff and Weiss went off books – although the most persistent culprit has been dialogue reduced to the level of the frequently banal; for those who complain about SF or fantasy shows failing to reflecting how people actually speak, this is the price you pay when they do – but there’s also the reality of pushing a boulder up hill and having to allow for its unstoppable momentum once released. Yes, they could frequently have shown more flair and dexterity, and nuance and wit, but relatively few events – that Beyond the Wall episode aside – had me thinking they’d seriously misstepped. The Jon-Dany romance, for example, was never going to take flight once it became clear Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington had zero chemistry (which doesn’t rely on being the greatest thesps ever, so that wasn’t the issue), so spending as little time as possible on it was the only sensible decision.

There’s Tyrion, of course, characterised as the brightest of the bright but in the last couple of seasons progressively made to look like he’s going to out-lap Jon Snow in the “you know nothing” stakes (ending up in the Winterfell crypt being maybe the worst indignity to his faculties). How he managed to turn events around in The Iron Throne is a mystery only the writers can truly answer (the same with Grey Worm having the restraint not to kill Jon as soon as he discovered what the latter had done; that they left this off screen speaks volumes). The council meeting certainly wasn’t the writers’ finest hour; if the choice of Bran as king (shouldn’t his first edict have been to stop anyone calling him “the Broken”?) satisfied in terms of arriving at someone not at least partially objectionable (and his “foreseen it all” element had an appealing touch of manipulation, whatever his nobler designs may be), he still manages to allow himself to be instantly undermined by stroppy Sansa before he’s even begun his reign.

I can’t say any of the season’s deaths had an enormous impact, since most of those exiting seemed to have run their course. Sir Jorah being faithful to the last, the inevitable clash of brothers seeing Glegane’s demise, and Cersei and Jamie buried under some rubble. I liked the undercutting of the latter, but could have done without the Jamie vs Euron fight (I could have done without Euron full stop); part of the problem Cersei has encountered is that, since her walk of shame, she’s had scant interesting plotlines, and during this final season in particular she just waited around for others to do all the doing. Actually, Varys’ demise was sad, and quite touching (Tyrion shops him but still offers a comforting hand), and nice that they remembered to give him a decent episode in The Last of the Starks (again, after a couple of seasons forgetting about him).

As for the survivors, the reveal of the members of the Small Council is entirely too neat, the sort of thing Joss Whedon would come up with, where everyone we know now has a position of importance regardless of suitability. Jon heading off beyond the Wall with Ghost and Tormund seemed fitting, as does Anya – the most engaging character of the season by far – setting off solo, hoping the producers don’t give her a spinoff, or that at very least George RR has plotted it in its entirety first if they do.

Far from Season Eight being the worst of the run and the retroactively ruining the entire show, I’d rate it ahead of both Five and Seven. Only the fourth and final episodes featured elements that fell below par, and they were still largely engrossing. The prize goes to the one that provoked the most gnashing of teeth, though, Dany’s holocaust hour in The Bells. As zeitgeist-seizing series go, Game of Thrones was blessed to avoid the kind of fate that befell Lost or Battlestar Galatica, where acceptance or denial come the finale was based on how well received the answers (or otherwise) to the mysteries were. Game of Thrones had no secrets left to unveil, save the fates of its characters, not that this staunched fan theorising in exactly the same manner of those preceding shows. Indeed, the biggest reveal came about three seasons back; that Benioff and Weiss’s legacy would be exposing as pulp a series that had hoodwinked viewers into believing it was adapting great literature. With such credentials, they’re probably ideally poised for their forthcoming Star Wars trilogy.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

It's Dark Age, by Jupiter!

The Dig (2021) (SPOILERS) An account of the greatest archaeological find Britain would know until Professor Horner opened the barrow at Devil’s End. And should you scoff at such “ fiction ”, that’s nothing on this adaptation of John Preston’s 2007 novel concerning the Sutton Hoo excavations of the late 1930s. The Dig , as is the onus of any compelling fictional account, takes liberties with the source material, but the erring from the straight and narrow in this case is less an issue than the shift in focus from characters and elements successfully established during the first hour.

He’s probably paranoid, high-strung, doesn’t like daylight. You know, has a lot of crumbs in his beard, if he has a beard.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) (SPOILERS) I’d like to report I had a blast with Godzilla vs. Kong . It’s lighter on its oversized, city-stomping feet than its slog of a MonsterVerse predecessor, Godzilla: King of the Monsters , and there are flashes of visual inspiration along with several engaging core ideas (which, to be fair, the series had already laid the seeds for). But this sequel still stumbles in its chief task: assembling an engaging, lively story that successfully integrates both tiny humans and towering titans.

Roswell was a smokescreen, we've had a half a dozen better salvage operations.

The X-Files 1.24: The Erlenmeyer Flask The Erlenmeyer Flask makes for a fast-paced, tense and eventful ride, but does it make any sense? That less than mattered at the time, but revisiting the mythology arc (for probably the fourth or fifth time) reveals increasingly tenuous internal coherence as the various conspiracy elements begin to pile up and the situations become ever-more convoluted. This will become the Chris Carter’s signature: don’t examine the details too closely, go with the flow. Trust Chris implicitly.

UFO IN MOSSINGHAM?

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2020) (SPOILERS) One might reasonably suggest the recourse of the ailing or desperate franchise is to resort, seemingly out of nowhere, to space aliens. Even Police Academy didn’t go that far (to Moscow, yes, but not to space). Perhaps animators think kids have no skills of discernment and will swallow any old sugar-coated crap. Perhaps they don’t, and they will. Ice Age had been enjoying absurd success until Collision Course sent Scrat spinning into the cosmos and grosses tumbled. Shaun the Sheep has been around for a quarter of a century, but this is only his second movie outing and already he’s pulling an E.T. on us. Of course, this may all be part of the grand scheme, and Nick Park is simply doing his bit to familiarise the tots in time for Project Blue Beam.

Suspicions of destiny. We all have them. A deep, wordless knowledge that our time has come.

Damien: Omen II (1978) (SPOILERS) There’s an undercurrent of unfulfilled potential with the Omen series, an opportunity to explore the machinations of the Antichrist and his minions largely ignored in favour of Final Destination deaths every twenty minutes or so. Of the exploration there is, however, the better part is found in Damien: Omen II , where we’re privy to the parallel efforts of a twelve or thirteen-year-old Damien at military school and those of Thorn Industries. The natural home of the diabolical is, after all, big business. Consequently, while this sequel is much less slick than the original, it is also more engaging dramatically.

You stink, my friend.

Mulan (2020) (SPOILERS) Let that be a lesson to Disney. It’s a fool’s errand to try and beat the Chinese at their own game, no matter how painstakingly respectful – or rather, pandering – you are. Indeed, Mulan ’s abysmal $40m box office take in the country – where it did get a proper release, so no plandemic excuses can be cited – feels like a direct rebuke; don’t try and tell us how to suck eggs. There’s an additional explanation too, of course. That Mulan sucks.

By heaven, I’d thrash the life out of you… if I didn’t have to read the Nine O’Clock News.

The Green Man (1956) (SPOILERS) The Green movie from Launder and Gilliat starring Alastair Sim that isn’t Green for Danger. Which is to say, The Green Man can’t quite scale the heady heights of that decade-earlier murder mystery triumph, but neither is it any slouch. Sim is the antagonist this time – albeit a very affable, Sim-ish one – and his sometime protégée, a young George Cole, the hero. If the plot is entirely absurd, Robert Day’s movie wastes no time probing such insufficiencies, ensuring it is very funny, lively and beautifully performed.

A subterranean Loch Ness Monster?

Doctor Who The Silurians No, I’m not going to refer to The Silurians as Doctor Who and the Silurians . I’m going to refer to it as Doctor Who and the Eocenes . The Silurians plays a blinder. Because both this and Inferno know the secret of an extended – some might say overlong – story is to keep the plot moving, they barely drag at all and are consequently much fleeter of foot than many a four parter. Unlike Malcolm Hulke’s sequel The Sea Devils , The Silurians has more than enough plot and deals it out judiciously (the plague, when it comes, kicks the story up a gear at the precarious burn-out stage of a typical four-plus parter). What’s most notable, though, is how engaging those first four episodes are, building the story slowly but absorbingly and with persuasive confidence.

Well, I’ll be damned. It’s the gentleman guppy.

Waterworld (1995) (SPOILERS) The production and budgetary woes of “ Kevin’s Gate ” will forever overshadow the movie’s content (and while it may have been the most expensive movie ever to that point – adjusted for inflation, it seems only Cleopatra came close – it has since turned a profit). However, should you somehow manage to avoid the distraction of those legendary problems, the real qualitative concerns are sure to come sailing over the cognitive horizon eventually; Waterworld is just so damned derivative. It’s a seafaring Mad Max. Peter Rader, who first came up with the idea in 1986, admitted as much. David Twohy, who later came aboard, also cited Mad Max 2 ; that kind of rip-off aspect – Jaws birthing Piranha – makes it unsurprising Waterworld was once under consideration by Roger Corman (he couldn’t cost it cheaply enough). Ultimately, there’s never a sufficient sense the movie has managed to become its own thing. Which is a bummer, because it’s frequently quite good fun.

Farewell, dear shithead, farewell.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) (SPOILERS) I saw Highlander II: The Quickening at the cinema. Yes, I actually paid money to see one of the worst mainstream sequels ever on the big screen. I didn’t bother investigating the Director’s Cut until now, since the movie struck me as entirely unsalvageable. I was sufficiently disenchanted with all things Highlander that I skipped the TV series and slipshod sequels, eventually catching Christopher Lambert’s last appearance as Connor MacLeod in Highlander: End Game by accident rather than design. But Highlander II ’s on YouTube , and the quality is decent, so maybe the Director’s Cut improve matters and is worth a reappraisal? Not really. It’s still a fundamentally, mystifyingly botched retcon enabling the further adventures of MacLeod, just not quite as transparently shredded in the editing room.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog