Has Game Of Thrones Lost Its Mojo?

With the season finales of Game of Thrones and Penny Dreadful now behind us is it time to ask whether Game of Thrones has lost its way? The shock effect of the final episode aside, this seasons Game of Thrones has been slower, less satisfying and, at least for me, more than a little disappointing. There can be no arguing with the quality of the acting or directing, all this is superb, but the slow pace of many of the story arcs this season meant that the season had a bloated feel to it in the middle episodes that hasn’t been seen in previous seasons. Part of the problem here is that there are now several competing storylines which all demand airtime and are inevitably edited in such a way as to give equal time to each. The end result however appears to be a slowing down in the narrative. This is not necessarily a problem for the established storylines as the viewer is already invested in these but when new characters come along such is the gargantuan size of HBO’s vision that they inevitably lack the time to fully develop them. The Sand Snakes are a good example of this. They were hyped quite heavily before the season aired but they received very little airtime and when they were on they came across as pretty one dimensional. I think this was a problem directly linked to my first point about their lack of airtime and, hopefully, this will be something that will evolve over season six.

Whilst there is no evidence of fans deserting Game of Thrones, the problem for HBO is that there are now other channels becoming increasingly adept at bringing their own flavours of fantasy and horror to the screen. This is especially evident in Showtime’s Penny Dreadful which has just been commissioned for a third season (albeit at nine episodes, one short of this seasons run) and is going from strength to strength. The Gothic horror brings different characters from literature, as well as some created specifically for the series, to life in a dark Victorian landscape. Its mash up of Grand Guignol and human interest is something that only a few years ago would not have been seen on TV. The seriousness with which channels like Showtime and Sky take this is underlined by the quality of the cast which includes Timothy Dalton, Simon Russell-Beale and Josh Hartnett revolving around an outstanding central performance by Eva Green.

The human interest element throws up another problem with this seasons Game of Thrones in that most of the characters seem to have become a lot less likeable. I know that this is probably to be expected as they become hardened to the events that take place around them but the problem with that is that we stop caring about them as viewers. With the honourable exception of Sansa Stark and Tyrian Lannister it seemed that everybody in Westeros had had a humanity bypass (okay, I guess we can add Jaimie Lannister to the other two as well but, let’s be honest, he was starting from a pretty low base.) The sheer breadth and spectacle of the show is amazing but there comes a point when something has to become of all the journeying and training.

Throw in the excellent adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and it is clear that all the mainstream channels are now discovering what HBO have known for some years, that there is a audience for adult orientated fantasy and that the market for this shows no sign of abating. Whilst this is good for us as an audience this could be a problem for HBO as audiences are notoriously fickle and if they become bored with one thing they will inevitably go looking for something to take its place. With the strong reviews for Penny Dreadful, this may end up being that ‘something else’. Right now it has a hardcore following of fans of the genre but this was the same for GoT for the first season until word got out. At the time HBO were in a good position due to the complete absence of competition and they should be applauded for taking a leap in to the dark with a genre piece that traditionally only has a limited audience. This, however, is no longer the case.

Game of Thrones is in many ways a victim of its own success and is by no means a busted flush but the sense of anticipation that I felt last year and in the years before that has now gone and been replaced by a kind of ‘meh’ feeling that means I watch it because I’ve watched everything that came before. Will I watch season six, yep, absolutely, but I really hope that the scriptwriters tighten the narrative as it is in real danger of losing the plot.