Showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss have gone on the record multiple times in the past saying that getting to the third season of Game of Thrones was their primary objective at the show’s outset. More specifically, they had set the singular objective of building towards a single scene in a single episode. That scene played itself out in shocking and gory fashion this week in episode nine, “The Rains of Castamere.”
It’s wedding season in the seven kingdoms as the first of four planned nuptials finally gets underway. Much of this week’s episode, “Second Sons," concerns the union of Sansa and Tyrion, which turns out to be exactly as sad and awkward as you would expect a forced wedding between a middle-aged dwarf and a 14-year-old girl to be.
In "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" it’s couples night in Westeros as we gear up for no less than three weddings. Sadly, it seems that the awards for happiest couple can go to several candidates other than the betrothed.
Last week’s episode ended on a high point for the series, as Daenerys acquired an army of Unsullied and burned Astapor from the inside out with the help of her dragons. This week's episode, appropriately titled "Kissed by Fire," begins with just as much energy and a healthy helping of fire to boot.
Titled “And Now His Watch Is Ended,” the fourth episode of Game of Thrones’ third season is by far the busiest and best episode we’ve seen yet. It could well represent a turning point for the season, which until this point has sort of oozed along in a relatively disjointed fashion.
Viewers attempting to detect any overarching themes or internal consistency in episode three of season three of Game of Thrones, entitled "Walk of Punishment," might be left stumped. Sort of like Jaime Lannister.
In “Dark Winds, Dark Words”, the action is mercifully contained in Westeros. I’ve been critical of the show so far this season for struggling to juggle the myriad plots, characters and locales, but this episode did a relatively strong job of weaving everything together.
In the premiere episode of the third season of Game of Thrones, titled “Valar Dohaeris” (a term that means “all men must serve” in High Valyrian) we’re quickly reminded of the stakes of the game. Reintroducing us to the world of Westeros and its inhabitants, the show continues to bring more to the table than it takes off. But will that leave some viewers confused?
The premiere episode of the third season of Game of Thrones opens way up North of the wall with Samwell Tarly running (not very quickly) away from a Wight attacker. The landscapes are breathtaking, the set pieces are exciting, the costuming is pitch perfect, and the plot lines are consuming. There’s also lots of gratuitous sex scenes and loads of gory, shocking bloodshed. In short, Game of Thrones still excels at what it does well.
We speak with actress Rose Leslie, who plays wilding Ygritte on the HBO's Game of Thrones. We discussed her character’s headspace at the beginning of season three, Leslie's favourite characters new and old, Game of Thrones vs. Downton Abbey, what the future holds for Jon Snow and Ygritte, and more!
Episode four of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, "I’ll Fix You," is a fairly engaging episode which delves the furthest into Will’s personal and emotional life thus far. Despite the strong character moments for McAvoy though, it's beginning to seem as though the female characters on The Newsroom exist pretty much only to instigate plot.
In many of the series reviews I've read of The Newsroom, critics unanimously declared that the pilot, "We Just Decided To," was the strongest of the first four episodes. For me, however, this Sunday's episode, "The 112th Congress," is easily Sorkin's strongest stuff thus far, at least partly because of the episodes effective structural reliance on a device that Sorkin memorably used in David Fincher's The Social Network.
After a promising but problematic pilot, the second episode of Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom should have brought things together and smoothed out some of the rough edges. Instead, it's very clear that the series is still struggling to find its feet. Worse, it almost squandered what interest we had in the series by repeating itself in just the second episode.
Pilot episodes are notoriously hard to pull off. The writer must introduce characters, themes, and settings, all while telling a very specific type of “jumping off” story likely bearing little resemblance to the episodes that will follow. Such is the case with “We Just Decided To,” the first episode of super-creator Aaron Sorkin’s new show The Newsroom.
After a notable 5-year absence from television, made even more notable by a well-deserved Academy Award win for The Social Network screenplay, Aaron Sorkin returns this Sunday to HBO with his new show The Newsroom. Ian MacIntyre previews the first three episodes of Sorkin's fast-paced and highly political new TV series.
