8 Good TV Shows One Crippling Flaw Away From Being Awesome

4. Game Of Thrones Is Limited By Close Adherence To The Source Material

There's SPOILERS in here, be warned. It breaks my heart to put this show on this list €“ I absolutely love the alternate reality that George R.R. Martin created, and it is such a huge world full with moral ambiguities and complications. Westeros is a cruel place, and it will destroy you if you don't have the mindset and internal fortitude for it. It is as real as real can be, with politics and alliances playing key parts in the story. That said, it's based on a medium that's already out there for everyone to see, and even for those who do not have patience with reading books (what has happened to our generation?) there are plenty of sources even for even the newest Game of Thrones fans to find out what is currently happening in Westeros. It will take only a few seconds for anyone to find out what eventually happens to that cruel King Joffrey. And there's the catch €“ anything based on another medium will have to follow the path that is already laid out for it. Granted, they do deviate from the source material, but with George R.R. Martin also so closely involved with the show, you can't throw in major changes or hope to surprise your audience completely. In Season 1, you have to kill Ned Stark because that's how the war begins; Jon Snow has to go to the Wall, Khal Drogo must die of an infected wound, and so on and so forth. Granted, it prevents the show from swaying to fan opinion but it limits its true potential. Imagine how terrifying it would have been had everybody been on the same level of knowledge (read: none) about Ned Stark's execution and death €“ the blow-up on social media and on the internet would have been ten times more powerful.