Game of Thrones: Not the Best Television On Air.

[This was originally written as a response to a YouTube comment the sum of which was to say that Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead were the best things on television. I decided not to post it as getting into a YouTube argument is not one of the things I like to spend my days doing.]

I think that Game of Thrones has been on a steady decline since season five. The showrunners do not have the talent at writing story to make up for GRRM's incredible original material nor can they match the artful, often poetic dialogue of GRRM. The problems were present from the beginning in some form or another. Even in the first episode Dany and Drogo's relationship never had that moment of consent that so marked the books. In season one it was overdoing the sexposition - the surrounding political drama was powerful, a deliberately-paced epic arc of how good intentions are undermined by smarter but more selfish players of the political game. In season three it was the god-awful unbearable Theon and Ramsay scenes, frankly among the ugliest, nastiest, most downright painful to watch scenes I've ever seen - though no fault of the actors involved, in their defense.

Season five really was where the decline began. The painfully mediocre Dorne scenes, flawed from the start by not bothering to even label the capital. "Dorne" is not an individual location within the Seven Kingdoms but one of the Kingdoms, the capital of which (Dorne) is Sunspear. Already undermined from the beginning, the Sands were reduced from seven to four, their character utterly mangled, and the entire thing became a painful joke to observe.

In the North, however, the set-up of Sansa in a position of power, Stannis ready to lay siege, and Brienne caught in a position between aiding Sansa or killing Stannis was utterly brilliant, genuinely good and tense televisual writing, placing each character in a unique position where quite possibly anything could happen. Alas, the promise of genius was not followed up upon. Sansa's presence in Winterfell where "the North remembers" did nothing. Stannis killed his daughter, only a couple episodes after their most touching scene to date, and lost the battle, and Brienne sort of Brienne'd it, killing Stannis and entering the service of Sansa.

Season six was, I suppose, an improvement in some respect, avoiding the downright awful scenes while tripping over its own temporal feet. Only the "Light of the Seven" scene managed excellence, by virtue of not so much eliminating the series' weaknesses as rendering them utterly irrelevant in the face of great music, stunning filming, and a massive fucking wildfire explosion which ever-so-conveniently killed off both Margaery Tyrell and the High Sparrow, probably in a move designed to rid the showrunners of storylines they didn't want to deal with. Certainly, it's the only reason I can thinking of for removing two of the more fascinating plotlines to emerge from AFFC/ADWD[1]. (One got a similar impression that they weren't much invested in Sam's plotline, either, but uninvested in the sense of uninterested rather than incapable.)

In any case, citing budget and audience response as reasons for quality is, well, not a good way of reasoning your way into good television. Of course the audience is going to love it. It's got a massive budget, it looks cool. That's basically it for season seven. The asinine "capture a wight" plan, the allying of Cersei and the Iron Bank for no apparent reason, Cersei not killing Tyrion when she had the chance, the also asinine conflict between Arya and Sansa, Bran basically becoming an emotionless robot... even the actors seemed less interested. Maisie Williams and Emilia Clarke basically sleepwalked through half the season, though watching Lena Headey ever remains a pleasure to behold. It's popcorn stuff, really, if it weren't for seasons one-four I wouldn't be watching anymore. I suppose it's down to how you demarcate quality - the response of the masses and the money spent on it, or by the writing? I lean towards demarcation by quality of the writing, simultaneously a more subjective and more accurate way of distinguishing quality.

So, eliminating Game of Thrones from consideration - and, by extent, The Walking Dead both for the clear transformation into popcorn and the simple fact that a season lasting twenty-plus episodes can not avoid putting out a piece of utter crap at some point -, what is the "best television show currently on air"? Alas, this is a question I can not answer, as I do not watch enough television to be able to answer that. I have severe doubts there can even be an answer to that question. But I imagine that others more knowledgeable than I could make convincing arguments for Outlander, American Gods, The Expanse, Humans, Black Mirror, Stranger Things, The Crown, if Amazon decides to renew Oasis[2] for a full season I'm sure there'll be arguments in favor of that if they can keep the quality of the pilot...

If it's a matter of favorite television programming, which it really seems to be in your case, I'm going to go with Mozart in the Jungle. Yeah, it's a mess, yeah, it's a comedy, yeah, it's not "serious character drama", but gosh darn it, it's a genuine joy and pleasure to watch. (A true shame that it isn't a few years ago - I might've pegged Orphan Black[3] for most fun [on top of character drama] or nominated Wolf Hall[4] [brilliant period drama] or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell[5] [a full ten stars, a tour de force of a show, basically faultless - and it's a book adaption too!].

---

Please post your thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear them. Remember, everyone, keep it respectful, no attacking each other, debate only.

---

[1] An absolute slog, by the way. GRRM's sense of pacing takes a nosedive from the deliberate to the occasionally glacial, and the introduction of further "delay tactics" to avoid any sense of coming to a conclusion - Lady Stoneheart, the false Aegon - doesn't really help. The killing of Kevan also plunges the Seven Kingdoms right back into chaos, when the tale of the "second brother" attempting to put back together the Kingdoms after years of war and his legacy after years of bad publicity would've been a far more interesting story.

[2] Seriously, Oasis was great. It's got Richard Madden in the title role - hardly my first pick, either, but he acquits himself excellently. Adapted (vaguely and with many original decisions) from Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things.

[3] A really fun series. Oh, sure, the writers made it up as they went along. But they never went with bad ideas, they never lost hold that much of the point of watching was seeing Tatiana Maslany play a variety of characters, they even managed to tie all the seasons together in the end and work in a rough theme of men trying to control women's bodies and nature v. nurture (the latter admittedly doesn't come off quite so intentionally as the former, but it's present from the beginning between Dyad, Dr. Coady, and P. T. Westmoreland at the very end). There were many emotional scenes and that one scene with Helena during the last episode of season five, the culmination of a character plot developing since season two, brought me to tears. Highly recommended, it's as much a part of this Golden Age of Television as any other. Maslany's Emmy was well-deserved and casting agents should be throwing themselves at their feet to cast her. Genuinely the best actress performing today.

[4] Really good period drama. Adapted from Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Introduced me to the excellence that is Mark Rylance. One of the best period dramas I've seen, flawlessly acted and directed, and paced - just be warned, the pacing is slow and deliberate, but never dragging.

[5] Adapted from Susanna Clarke's novel of the same name. Also utterly fantastic, taking place in a Britain with magic coming back against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, all boiling down not truly to the two men the story centers around but instead the influences of everyone on their margins. A powerful story with a stunning ending, magically adapted by Peter Harness, cutting out much of the unnecessary chaff of the book (especially from Part 3), rearranging an event or two, all together unafraid to change from the book when necessary, yet always remaining true to it. Possibly the best book-to-screen adaption ever. Impeccable casting, as well. If you watch only one of the shows I've recommended, watch this one - it's a seven-episode miniseries.