Game Of Thrones Season 7 Premiere: 9 Ups And 3 Downs From 'Dragonstone'

1. A Typical Season Premiere

Look at any given season of Game of Thrones, and the first episode is never the best. Due to the slow-build nature of the show, and the way it likes to scatter its pieces, the premiere is used to put everyone back on the board.

It feels like a particularly egregious example of that this year, though, for a couple of reasons. Firstly is that it hits all of the same beats as the Season 6 finale, but without the same amount of payoff. It means that while those scenes are entertaining to watch, there's a lack of narrative development.

That feeds into the second reason, which is there are only seven episodes left. Thrones gets away with starting slowly in its first couple of episodes because it has another eight hours in front of it, but it doesn't have that luxury here, which makes the narrative stalling more noticable.

What did you think of Dragonstone? Let us know down in the comments.