Game of Thrones - anyone else feel like this season is the show on fast-forward? They should’ve stuck with two 10-episode seasons to even out the pacing instead of this weird 7- and 6-episode final seasons business.
Unfortunately that wasn’t possible given the technical and proficiency aspects of filming due to the stories told this season (20+ locations in 5 countries with several units) - plus the contractual aspects of the cast and crew (mainly time available)…
They had little option but to reduce the number of episodes - yet lengthen those episode run-times so in essence it is an eight episode season (fewer scenes apparently ended up on the cutting room floor for this season than previous helps).
Next season will mostly see near feature-length run-times to finalise the story.
Personally, I think this season struggled a little with the pacing in the first 2/3 episodes - but has hit it’s mark since then… (with one episode more to go - unleaked, anyway 😉)
Seems Star India and HBO Sweden & HBO Spain have played a blinder sidelining the hackers since their demands were made public - though HBO really shouldn’t have announced they were going to war on the pirates like that - it was only asking for trouble… (then and since) - which they found as quickly as Euron manages to dart around Westeros 😉