(Note to editor: Just to let you know, I changed the thumbnail as I felt the final episode was worse than “The Bells”, hope that’s alright. Thanks, Michael.)
There was a time not so long ago where you only had one real option if you wanted a mature, epic, well-made, high concept fantasy series, that being The Lord of the Rings. However, that’s no longer the case, as the genre has spread its wings like a mighty dragon, and Game of Thrones deserves a lot of credit for helping it do so.
The epic TV show which brought the land of Westeros to life did a fantastic job at revitalising the fantasy genre and even became a kick-starter for the golden age of television. With all that being said, most people now groan when you bring up the magical/medieval HBO series, as the weight of expectation seemed to crush it like an ant under a boot.
While there’s still an unprecedented amount of good in this show, the stink of the last few seasons has put a dampener on its overall reputation. By looking at the worst episode in each season, you don’t just see GOT’s declining quality but also some of the cracks in its armour that were there from the get-go.
These first few entries are going to be a lot trickier than the latter half of the show, as, all things considered, Game of Thrones really did feel like a perfect saga when it got jump-started. Season One sewed all the seeds for Westeros by introducing the characters and giving us a taste of what was to come, and there was only one outing that lagged behind a little.
In “Lord Snow”, each character gets a chance to adjust to their new lives. Jon begins his training at the Night’s Watch and attempts to make friends. The Starks arrive in King’s Landing, and Dany gets into a conflict with her brother Viserys and discovers she is pregnant (talk about a busy day).
It’s hardly what you can call a bad episode, but it does suffer from needing to introduce a tonne of new characters and generally lacking in a spicy narrative. It feels like a transitional episode, and in the first season’s high-ranking repertoire, that makes it stick out like a sore thumb. It’s only good, as opposed to great.
