Game Of Thrones: Ranking Every Season From Worst To Best

7. Season 7

Game of Thrones Season 7
HBO

Season 7 represented a major shift towards the endgame, and it resulted in one of the weakest runs of the series. After the stunning Season 6 finale it was another year where the status-quo felt radically changed - Queen Cersei, King Jon, and Daenerys in Westeros - but most of the season, which was only seven episodes long, simply served as setup for the eighth and final one.

The overarching problem with Season 7 was that aforementioned reason to have a truncated season, as losing those three hours meant the storytelling became incredibly rushed in parts. That, in turn, meant characters had to be teleporting all around Westeros, and there were some gaping holes in the logic.

Some storylines suffered from missing too many episodes, such as the Hound having an intriguing arc established in the premiere, but disappearing until the end of episode 5, or Euron being setup as a serious villain, but skipping most of the back-half. Others were just badly written, which was particularly the case with the Winterfell plot. Arya's initial return was great, but the tensions between her and Sansa felt forced, strange, and made little sense, even though it did have a satisfying conclusion.

The plan to capture a wight was so dumb it's hard to believe absolutely no one objected to it, and was just in keeping with how terrible Tyrion's ideas were all season. It also led to the show's most divisive, and frustrating, penultimate episode.

There were moments of greatness in there too though, even if of a different kind. With an epic budget, the scale and spectacle felt bigger and better than ever, especially in the case of Daenerys' dragons. The Spoils of War was an absolute stunner, and contained the sort of moral grey area the show always used to excel in, and the two Kings and Queens all had huge seasons: Lena Headey was once again incredible; the Night King finally made his move; and Jon and Daenerys met at last.

In its closing moments the Wall came down, and that summed up a lot of the season: a dazzling, shocking blockbuster, but - as is often the case with penultimate seasons - more concerned with the story (and war) to come. Too many of the plots felt like the showrunners, who are now well off-book, knew where characters had to end up, and got them there as fast as possible, intricate details and logic be damned.

Best Episode: The Spoils Of War

Worst Episode: Beyond The Wall

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NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.