Game of Thrones fans like myself are hurting due ot the posponed showing of the 9th episode of season 3. For those unfamiliar, unlike most shows the biggest sha bangs in GoT series happen on the second to last episode of the season. And the past two season have shown, they’ve been some pretty freaking big sha bangs.
Which is an excellent audience holder, rather than leave us hanging on final episode of the seasons, the show has another hour to have the characters cope with whatever Hell George RR Martin wrote for the characters and gradually sets us up for next season. Which we wait 8 to 9 months for like crazy people.
The break wasn’t so much for torturing the already masochistic fans, but for the logistical ratings of Memorial day weekend. Where people travel for vacation, see family, pay respect to our soldiers and veterans, and generally don’t sit around on the couch at 9pm. The star studded HBO movie “Behind the Cabdelabra,” premiers in GoT place, and the swap was beneficial for the sake of ratings. Show business is rarely “make the audience happy” business. The producers noticed a decline in viewers on the Season 2 episode 9 episode, which also premiered Memorial Day weekend last year. No matter what the reason, networks take note of shows that loose ratings, ratings are the lifeblood of a television show regardless of its content.
In example.
So yeah, it just sucks we have to wait for the 9th episode of an already emotion roller coaster ride of a show. Book readers are going to be wetting their pants while show watchers will have hernias after the 9th episode as my own guess of how things will go.
All in all, logistics and ratings matter, and nerds can take one week to emotionally prepare for the atom bomb that is due this Sunday. For a show that has been more or less loyal to the books and also delivers content, I’m willing to wait.