When the phenomenon Game of Thrones first aired in the UK my partner and I sat down just like millions of other viewers did, to watch season one. Being fans of fantasy and particularly, Lord of the Rings and Conan, we were excited to see this new venture.

I had not read any fantasy for a long time and although I had heard of Song of Fire and Ice, the books by George RR Martin that the series was based upon I had not read any of them and so neither of us knew anything about it. What we got was confusing at best, brutal and uncompromising by any standard and slightly frustrating. It seemed that the writers had taken the fantasy rule book and thought how do we break all the rules and still remain within the construct of a story set within the confines of a fantasy universe. I have to say they accomplished this with remarkable skill and a certain amount of flair. It left me in total shock because in any story you have a clear protagonist and antagonist so in simple terms you knew who to root for and no matter what was thrown at them they would eventually triumph. In Game of Thrones that was not the case. From early on it was made abundantly clear that no one was safe in this story. We saw several members of the cast cut down in various brutal ways which left me in particular wondering what was going on, where was this going.

I persevered through season one and on into season two but lost interest half way through and did not watch any more. On our first Comic Con in years we saw that there was a panel from the Game of Thrones with various past cast members so we thought we would watch this. There had been a lot of talk in the media and among our group of friends and it was all extrememly positive about this show so we thought this could be our chance to see what they were all talking about, get some insight into the show. We came away from it thinking we had to get back into it and give it another chance. It was clear from the cast on the panel that they had an amazing time making the show, they dropped a few plot points and the entire atmosphere from the cast on stage was that of an extended family that loved everyone and this was reflected in the audience.

We had the box set of season one through three on blu ray at home so we diligently caught up then to cut a long story short we downloaded all the episodes we missed when it returned to the tv.

Season eight was looming, the final ever season. Everyone was talking about this, Avengers Endgame and the final season of Game of Thrones was all anyone wanted to talk about or see, I know that’s not quite true but at times it did seem that way. All the troubles in the world seemed to fade into the background for just a moment or two as we focussed on these two events.When season eight dropped, the anticipation was at an all time high, Endgame had come and gone now this was on everyone’s lips. Questions were asked, will this be as good as the rest of the series, who will take the Iron Throne? All these and many more and then the reviews were in from the audience as well as reviewers and I have to agree with all of them. This was not as good as what came before. A lot of traction in the media had built around the fact that the series had caught up with the books which are still being written, Martin is notorious for the time he takes to write this series and he has admitted that the book ending will probably not be the same as what the writers of the series had finished on. A lot of the reviews said that this seemed rushed, this entire season seemed uncharacteristically disjointed with some of the characters suddenly acting out of character and I had to agree with all of this. It was like watching a Hollywood blockbuster that spent the first two hours of the movie setting the scene and playing out the narative and suddenly realising they had fifteen minutes of screen time left to fill in the gaps and tie up all the loose ends. This is what the writers did with Game of Thrones, they knew this was the end and instead of filling it out with another season to fully explore all the ramification of the two huge events taking place, they decided to shoe horn them both into six episodes. Season eight should have concentrated on the war with the Night King and then season nine could have been what took place after. This way they could have allowed the characters to deal with all the massive consequences of these two events in the way the rest of the series had.

Was this ending satisfying? I have to say no, it was a massive disappointment to me but I have to admit that as bad as this was considering what came before it it was streets ahead of anything else on tv at the moment. This show will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the greatest, if not the greatest show ever but for one small failing, the ending. Had they taken the time to finish this off the correct way this would have been epic but now there is a chance that it could be remembered just for this last season. This was a failed opportunity to be in the record books for all the good reasons let’s hope that all the good that came before the end will sway everyone into remembering it for that and not just for all the fuss over the stale ending. I guess only time will tell.