It's been nice to see anything related to the previous story.

It is hard for me to divorce myself from the books, so that is central to my complaint with where the television series has gone diverging from the source material.

Actions need to mean something for stakes and consequences to be appreciated. For example, killing the ruling family of one of the seven kingdoms requires a great deal of work and has massive consequences.

The death of Eddard Stark led to a war, and only through betrayal by Theon ("killing Bran and Rickon") and Frey/Bolton (Killing Catelyn and Robb) with Arya in exile and Sans ain hiding could the Starks be brought down. Even then the Bolton's grasp on the North is tenuous and needed backing from the Lannisters with simmering resentment against them "The North Remembers".

Now, let us look at how the show handled Dorne so dramatically different from the books. The Sand Snakes kill Doran Martell and Trystane (in the show that is the whole of the Martells as far as I can tell, Arianne and Quentyn have been removed). So...who rules Dorne? House Sand with Ellaria? Given the guards failed to do anything to protect or avenge their Prince I assume the other houses in Dorne will be fine being ruled by bastards as doubt they'll add a Dornish Civil War to the show.

It just comes across as lazy in the show to kill people without thought. The reason death has an impact is the consequences. Just killing people left and right for shock value makes them feel meaningless because "Game of Thrones" is a far simpler show as the writers ignore the vast complexities Martin had in "A Song of Ice and Fire" cutting characters, story lines, and just dumbing down so many aspects and apparently giving people the ability to travel 100x faster to places than they could making the world feel small.

I'll keep watching, but no doubt in my mind Book 6 "The Winds of Winter" will be far superior and intricate a tale than what the show writers slapped together once they went beyond source material. Maybe that doesn't affect others feelings, but such a ground thought out world drew me in and seeing what feels like bad fan fiction is frustrating.

So are you saying you think there's 3-4 seasons left, total? I don't believe that's the case if so. The writers (D&D) have stated many times they see the entire story ending in 7-8 seasons. What I can foresee happening is them pushing to an 8th season (20 more episodes after this season 6), or they will split season 7 with a mid season break, meaning there will be 14-16 episodes. 

This is definitely a story/show that needs to end and have closure, else it faces the entirely possible doom of being watered down (not to mention the more they crank out, the less redeeming/emotional everyones deaths will have been). I also think season 4 was one of the higher points of the series, and the writers said before that season 4 felt like entering the final act. 

I should add one final note, reading some comments about filler vs straying from the source material, etc. Personally, I think in every season they could cut down on the nudity and sex scenes significantly and use that time to develop the arcs and politics more... I'm sure there are some who will disagree but I reached a point in seasons 2-3 where I felt if they were to have cut back on those scenes even in half, that time could have been better used for details within the story itself. Too often HBO just wants to be pervy and inundate us with unnecessary sexual content. 

Spoilers below.

Easily the most boring and predictable season thus far. Ramsay is an awful generic villain, Daenerys once again prevails without breaking a sweat, House Martell is exterminated in a heartbeat while no one seems to care, Littlefinger gathers the Knights of the Vale in the most ridiculous fashion and the King's Landing plot-line has not been interesting in the least. There is too much build-up and too few interesting characters and sub-plots to keep you interested, which all comes down to poor writing and budget constraints.

A fundamental error in the storytelling that's been more prevalent the more the story is detached from the books is that we are getting apparent teams of good guys and bad guys while grey people are few and far between. A clear sign that the showrunners care more about ratings and reactions on social media than telling a compelling story.

I wouldn't say that the series is irredeemable at this point, but it is most definitely tainted as of these last two seasons.

It was kind of a mix bag. Episode 4 and 1 were great, but 2 and 3 were a bit... meh. 2 is probably one of my least favourite episode of the entire show. I mean, everything that happened came to me as cheap and telegraphed. So definitely worse than the previous seasons, but not terrible.

No, I meant 2/3 after this season. From what they've been saying, yeah, 3 is probably a stretch. I think we'll get at least another 20 episodes, they were saying only 13 but then backtracked on this.

Gotcha, yea that makes more sense. 

Weakest season so far.

If even Varys and Tyrion have boring dialogues you know you're in trouble.

If Sansa is - out of all possibilities - the only character to show (mild) development, you know you're in even more trouble.

The worst moment so far was the predictable, yet very weakly scripted and filmed reanimation of that self-pitying character played by a guy with no charisma whatsoever (lack of charisma and acting talent is a general problem with young actors not named Maisie in this show).

And we already had another one of those stupid "look, I'm an unstoppable goddess" moments for that dragon girl.

Sounds like I hate GOT, right? Nope, overall I'm still enjoying it as there's nothing like it on TV, but S6 can only get better from here on out.

The last season was so terrible, I have little desire to even watch this season, let alone the rest of the show. Too much better stuff to watch these days.

I get the feeling they're just going to drag it out as long as they can. It's HBO's Walking Dead.

Ha, surprise. I really liked episode 5.