The remaining episodes of Game of Thrones will not be super sized
By Corey Smith
Game of Thrones is rapidly approaching its conclusion, leading many to hope the remaining episodes would be extra long. Sadly, that is simply not true.
Missed in last week’s jubilation of finally receiving a Game of Thrones trailer for season 7, is the realization that that seven weeks after it debuts, season 7 will be over. That’s of course, three weeks longer than we are used to with ten episode seasons. Even worse, season 8 has been confirmed to only consist of six episodes. With such dire news on the horizon, it seemed only natural that fans would clamor fro some sort of good news.
With only thirteen total episodes of the series left, many fans (and media) have taken to speculating that the final episodes might be super-sized, or extra long. According to Entertainment Weekly, however, that is unfortunately not true. EW reports that “the remaining episodes are not, for the most part, longer.”
Image Credit: HBO
Sorry to smash your hopes like the head of Oberyn Martell Thrones fans. We already know that the season 7 premiere will clock in at 58 minutes, which puts in right in the middle as far as premiere lengths go (three have been long, three have been shorter).
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Of the other episodes being longer, EW brings the logic hard and heavy. As EW notes, why would showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss “lobby HBO for fewer episodes to close out the show and then make them all extra long.” HBO was all about more episodes of Game of Thrones, but D&D wanted less to keep the story tighter. When pitching the show to HBO, D&D pitched 70 episodes, meaning we are getting three more than they originally intended.
EW also brings up the valid point, that everyone involved in television is generally paid by the episode, not by episode length. Meaning, again why would D&D work on producing a slew of extra long episodes when they aren’t being paid for doing so? HBO would have gladly taken more episodes had D&D deemed it necessary, but it seems they are comfortable with the overall amount of story they still have to tell.
Game of Thrones season 7 premieres July 16th.