Few final seasons in the history of television have split opinion quite like the eighth and final run of Game of Thrones. While the show’s status as a cultural behemoth that will be regarded as one of the all-time greats is more than assured, it would be an understatement to say that the last run of episodes proved to be pretty divisive among the fans.
A lot of people believe that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss simply ran out of ideas once they had to come up with their own stories, and even the stars themselves publicly addressed the criticism on numerous occasions. Weiss and Benioff went on to join the Star Wars franchise, of course, but in an ironic twist, they ended up quickly changing their minds and walking away in virtually no time at all, with Disney and Lucasfilm also coming under heavy fire for their handling of a popular and beloved property.
Finales to long-running shows are always incredibly difficult to pull off, but the general consensus is that Game of Thrones badly dropped the ball when it came to wrapping up the narrative, which even led to petitions being launched in an effort to have the eighth season remade by somebody else.
While that obviously isn’t going to happen, in a recent interview, Charles Dance admitted that he would join former co-star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in signing the petition to change how Game of Thrones ended.
“Well, if there was a petition, I would sign it. I mean, I saw it. I continued to watch the whole series even after I’d been killed off in the lavatory. Because I just thought it’s a fantastic television show, you know? I was very lucky to be part of it. I loved it. There were storylines where I wanted to know what was going to happen to these people. I know that the finale satisfied a lot of people. It also disappointed a lot of people, and I’m afraid I am in the latter camp.”
Even despite the backlash to the finale, Game of Thrones is still regularly named as one of the greatest TV shows ever made, and there’s no doubt HBO have taken notice of the criticism and will keep it in mind as they move forward on prequel series House of the Dragon. Or at least, we certainly hope that they will.