White walkers, witches, dragons... what an awesome fantasy television show. Or it might be if we ever got to see any of those choice details. Four years and thirty-eight hours of television have not exactly yielded a whole lot of this magical mythology that has been emphasised so much: we've seen about a minute's screentime of the supposed dreaded white walkers, we've seen a dragon eat a sheep and a woman give birth to a weird smoke monster. That's not really a great deal to go on. The slow build approach is good, increasing the anticipation, but it's been nearly forty hours of television now and we've hardly seen anything at all. There comes a point where you really can't keep calling Game of Thrones a fantasy show in good conscience, and at the moment it should surely be classed more along the lines of Vikings than Lord of the Rings. The white walkers were first teased in the very first episode of the show and then again at the end of series two and a hint of the King this season, but there's been very little else and this long drawn out process has long since passed into tedium. It might work in the books, but it's far too slow for television and the anticipation has quailed somewhat as the seasons have gone on. It's the same issue with the dragons: a massive deal was made of them in season one, but they've pretty much done nothing since, besides cropping up in one or two episodes just to remind the audience that they're still there. It's hard not to want to grab HBO's show-makers by the throat and tell them to get on with it. Are you happy with Game of Thrones? Do you agree with any of these points? Share your thoughts below in the comments thread.
