I agree with your list, and this is the main reason why I am half-excited of GOG entering the "movie" business. Because on top streaming, they also let you download the whole movie for offline use, with no strings attached. (Too bad though the selection is rather poor at least currently; and not sure how much better it will get... But the idea is sound.).

People say streaming is the way to go and that's what most people want, yet at the same time the ability to watch movies offline (ie. preload the movies or series) is one of the most requested features for Netflix. So far Netflix has said they don't want to do it.

http://www.techradar.com/news/video/netflix-offline-viewing-is-never-going-to-happen--1277413

http://www.neowin.net/news/netflix-dashes-hopes-of-download-lovers-says-offline-viewing-is-never-going-to-happen

Then again, my understanding is that some other streaming video services do offer offline capability too (like Amazon? With heavy DRM I presume so that people can't copy the movies freely), so it may be Netflix has to follow suit at some point, even though they now say "never"!

I dunno, maybe I was expecting too much like Gladiator (the movie). Or maybe Spartucus (the series), albeit I haven't really watched that either so much. You know, grand fights with massive armies etc., just like Gladiator or Alexander. I had some mental image that GoT is probably something like that, but it isn't (I guess grand fights are still too expensive to make for TV series, even with current computer technology).

You see some characters going to fight... and then coming back. Like in the end of the season 1, you see the people rushing to combat, the dwarf is knocked out... and next you see they are talking to each other "Yeah, we won. Wheee!". Ok, thanks for nothing. :) That's like looking at a pr0n movie where they get undressed... and next they are smoking in the bed (I think Bachelor Party movie had something like that).

Some of the one-on-one fights are pretty ok though, like the one in that high castle in season one, or the fencing instructor fighting the knights with a wooden sword.

GoT has a bit too much useless talk to my liking. Conspiracies etc. are fine I guess, but then you get that stuff also in Bold and Beautiful, where everyone is conspiring against each other and wants to get to the throne of the Forrester company. Ooooh, intriguing. :)

All that said, I am not saying it is a poor TV series, but it just reminds me even more why I prefer movies to TV series.

Hahaha! I always thought that something was off in this series, and you just helped find out what it was. I really like the fights, the nudes, the scenery and the DRAGONS, but all this talking and big words and more talking seems out of place.

PS: I'm gonna watch it again, now that it has been brought up.......

For everything that was brought up i'm suddenly reminded that Ghost in the Shell has probably everything mentioned and more (Well maybe not dragons, unless large robots the size of trailers count).

Ladies (both of you) and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make.

Today, I finally watched the last episode of the last season of Game of Thrones. Yes yes I've watched all the other seasons and episodes before it too, I didn't cheat by just jumping to the end of the last season.

Wow, I can't believe I started this thread 7 years ago? There were only four seasons made by then? I could swear I started this thread two years ago or so, wow how time flies...

Anyway, I've been whining about this series in several occasions, and yes I stopped watching it at several points and was bored to tears around seasons 2-5 or so. There were some high points in those seasons too, but generally it did indeed feel like a soap opera in a fantasy setting with violence and nudity thrown in too.

Also, I kept hearing from many sources that the last few seasons and episodes are total shit, which made me even more hesitant to continue watch it.

So, to my utter surprise: to me the last three seasons were probably the very best, the most exciting, the most interesting, actual drama that even I cared for. Including the last season and especially the last few episodes, they were actually pretty great! They actually made me kinda like the series overall, even if I definitely wouldn't want to go through seasons 2-5 again.

SPOILERS AHOY! (if you don't want to learn anything what might happen, don't read further.)

Many times I complained how the series had no or very low quality battle scenes, probably due to a low(ish) budget. Well, the last few seasons really fixed that big time! Great large scale battle scenes, you could really tell their budget had gone through the roof.

Ok how the dead walkers were defeated was quite abrupt, considering how much they were talked about in earlier seasons. And the whole thing they were defeated was quite cliched, the good old vampire movie idea where they can all be destroyed with one single blow... but I guess they just ran out of good ideas for the story how to deal with them.

In the last two episodes, I really liked how they dealt with e.g. Cersei, Jamie, the blond chick etc... These things ended up quite differently than what I anticipated, good work there.

Also, it was a very high point to be that the mother of dragons, which was depicted as some kind of flawless Mary Sue character throughout the whole series. She was a very boring character throughout the series, but really got some human weaknesses towards the end... and yes her fate took me by a surprise.

I must say I'm kinda surprised now how much I actually like the series now, after the last two or three seasons. The earlier seasons... meh, it was too much all over the place with so many different sub-stories and paths, and advancing so very slowly...

Next I might think about watching Sopranos from start to finish... so far, in the past, I've seen only single episodes here and there, and even them only partly.

this show single handedly made me stop watching any tv series until they're wrapped up....

I read somewhere that there are several violent sex scenes in this series. Is that true?

Glad you enjoyed your time with the series.

I enjoyed seasons 1 - 7. Even though I noticed a lacking quality once they went "off book," I still found the series enjoyable... until season 8. For me, season 8 was an exercise in expectation-subversion that missed more than it hit... and ultimately left me feeling unfulfilled. Did I absolutely hate it all? No (although I did hate some choices). I just mainly came away a bit deflated.

IMHO much like LOST, GoT has some hours / seasons of brilliant television, but then sadly trips, tumbles, and sputters to an end. Although not perfect, I tended to enjoy most of my time with Vikings more... and will always see Deadwood as the pinnacle of HBO series.

Never having watched it prior, I watched the entirety of The Sopranos a few years back. IMO it's a bit uneven -- with some clunker episodes -- but it's good. Definitely worth watching. It got me to watch Boardwalk Empire... a show that I thought was amazing... until that last season (again!). ;)

This means we MUST have a FILTER to keep discussion of Game of Thrones off this forum!

Well, not the most of it. :) The last few seasons mostly.
I have no idea which things were based on books and which not, as I've never read them.

It did feel a bit rushed towards the end, as if they felt they need to start wrapping it all up and tie all the loose ends fast (of which there were so many)... but overall I felt it all ended pretty ok, and I was even (pleasantly) surprised by some of the story arch endings, how things ended. I felt some of the central characters suddenly evolved into a bit surprising directions at the end.

I just felt that during e.g. the very last season there was some drama that I actually cared for and which moved me, rather than the earlier seasons where I got bored by yet another story of someone telling how rough his or her childhood was because some awful wizard took his crown jewels etc., meh...

I really couldn't stand Lost. I tried to start watching it from season 1 when it originally was aired here... but quite soon it became apparent to me that the they are just intentionally prolonging the series, making stuff up as they go. I lost interest to that series very fast.

The same happened with e.g. Walking Dead, after a few seasons I understood that yep, this thing is not going anywhere. It was as if the protagonists were walking in circles, season after season.

At least that can nowadays be done with streaming services.

They originally started showing GoT on our national TV, but of course it didn't occur to me to start watching the series until they were already showing season 2 or even later. I didn't want to try to dive in in the middle, and I am glad I didn't, many things later in the series would have been without a context if you had not seen earlier seasons and episodes.

There are quite many supposedly "steamy" sex scenes, not so much violent sex scenes. It is mostly just the "shock value" of some of the actors/actresses taking all their clothes off and then you can see their nipples and sometimes even the beaver, oh no...

Maybe that is also why I liked the last few seasons more, as I think there were less of such scenes towards the end. Still some, though, but they weren't quite so much in your face anymore.