For the past several years, HBO’s Game of Thrones has been an absolute juggernaut. It’s without a doubt one of the most successful shows on television at the moment and has an enormous fanbase to boot. But nothing lasts forever and after two more seasons, it’ll all come to an end.
Despite the fact that the hit fantasy series continues to impress with each and every episode, it’s probably not a bad idea to pull the curtain down in a few years, as it’s better that Thrones goes out on a high note than drag on longer than need be. And while we know that season 7 and 8 will be shorter than previous outings, that shouldn’t signal that we have anything to worry about.
In fact, if actor Iain Glen, who plays Jorah Mormont, is to be believed, the shorter length of these upcoming seasons won’t have any impact on their quality. According to him, they’re going to be “more extraordinary” than what’s come before.
“They are taking the length of time it takes to shoot ten episodes to shoot just seven this year and six next year. There are fifteen more hours left in Thrones as we understand it, but that may change, but that’s as far as we know. I think the scale and size of the set pieces, the world that is being created it’s just getting more and more extraordinary and they feel they need that time to shoot seven hours as opposed to ten.”
So, nothing to worry about then. The same can’t be said for some of our favorite characters, though, as several key figures will no doubt meet an early death and Glen reveals that even the cast members don’t know who’s going to make it to the end:
“I don’t know of course if I’m going to make it to the last one. I’m sort of doing a head count, but I think it’s certainly under ten people who were in the original pilot and have been in every season since. I’ve grown very attached to it. I love the people involved. Dan and David are very benign showrunners and very good people. … This season you feel that the drama is moving towards its end game, more characters are overlapping so we are seeing a lot more of each other, than perhaps in the past. In the same scenes and we are going to the same places.”
Fans are no doubt disappointed that Game of Thrones is coming to a close, but it certainly seems like the showrunners have some pretty exciting things in store for us with this last batch of episodes. Of course, actors are always going to hype up whatever project they’re working on at the moment, but there’s no reason to not believe what Glen says here. The show rarely disappoints and I think it’s safe to say that these last two seasons will be just as explosive and thrilling as what’s come before, ensuring that one of television’s greatest achievements goes out in style.
