By David Knuth, staff writer
The Game of Thrones season five premiered on April 12 and has drawn an enormous amount of excitement from fans, and even some newcomers, alike.
Ever since the show’s season one premiere, which had 2.2 million people tuning in, the show’s audience has been building steadily. By the end of season four, HBO stated that the show had found there to be a grossing number of 18.1 million viewers tuning into the series. That’s up by close to 1.2 million from last year’s premiere within the same period of time. I’m sure these numbers had some help increasing with the new release of HBO Now, but that doesn’t neglect the fact that the first four episodes of season five were illegally leaked online, even before the first episode aired.
While airing early on the Internet, fans filled with excitement scrambled to get their first taste (or fairly large bite) out of Game of Thrones season five.
Given the show’s large scope of popularity, this wouldn’t be the first time it has experienced leaks and illegal downloads. The leaks were more than likely caused by early screeners, who were given review copies ahead of time.
Of course being the excited fan that I am, I couldn’t help but voyage through the Internet, seeking out the leaked episodes, which I did successfully find. Through the remaining hours of April 12, I had binge- watched the first four episodes right before the premiere itself. An entire month’s worth of “GoT” season five has left me happy, but not satisfied. It will be a month’s wait for new content, but it was worth it.
Fans should expect the new season of Game of Thrones to make its way into the 7th edition of the book series “A song of Ice and Fire,” “A Dance with Dragons,” and while finishing up lingering strands
of “A Storm of Swords” and “A Feast for Crows.” The show will do this by adapt- ing events from each book concurrently for the show, while of course implementing some original material. Book readers should expect more alterations in season five than any other before it. Entire story arcs and characters are being dropped, giving the show the ability to spoil aspects of the book for readers. It could mean that some characters and story arcs play an insignificant role for future installments of the book series.
With the first episode of season five, “The Wars to Come” (a phrase said by both V arys and Mance), viewers are gripped from the start with a mysterious open that plays heavily on scheming and plot.
Using a flashback as the opener for the season allows us to get more insight on certain characters before we meet back up with them.
This is something that I came to really appreciate as the episode progressed. Given the nature of the show, it is common to suspect the season premiere to play catch up with characters across Westeros and Essos, and the season five premiere it does just that.
The episode does execute its coverage on most characters excellently, but leaves questions to the whereabouts of some.
Most should notice that a few main protagonists come up missing in the premiere, leaving us all in anticipation of future episodes. In the premiere, we mostly get setup for character stories and events.
The next coming three episodes have more to offer than what we get in the beginning, given the natural formula for a TV series.
Overall, the premiere plays out a bit slow, as it attempts to catch up with the events surrounding most of the main characters, but satisfies as a season opener. 4 STARS