HBO hasn’t yet formally renew Game of Thrones for an eighth season, and there’s an exciting — or annoying — reason for that. It all depends on your personal take on the hit TV series.
Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss surprised fans last year when they said that they have some 13 hours left in the Game of Thrones saga. That implied that HBO would only air 13 more episodes over the course of the next two seasons. We already know that season 7 will hit HBO later than initially expected, and it will consist of just 7 episodes. So we thought HBO had settled on a six-episode eight and final season.
However, TVLine found out that HBO is still waiting for Benioff and Weiss to decide how many episodes they want in season 8. That’s why the last Game of Thrones season has not been formally confirmed.
“The only thing we’re working out is how many episodes they want to do,” HBO programming president Casey Bloys told the site. Bloys “hopes” there will be more than six episodes.
“They’re still figuring it out because I think they’re trying to get a shape of the season,” he said. “They always do what they think [will yield] the best version of the show. It’s all about how many they’re comfortable [with]. But I’ll always take more.”
However, more episodes of a TV series won’t necessarily make it a better show. Just look at the most recent season of The Walking Dead. Fans could certainly have done without quite a few of the episodes in the first half of the current season.
Moreover, Benioff and Weiss last year said they had a firm conclusion in mind for Game of Thrones when they started it.
“I think we’re down to our final 13 episodes,” Benioff said last April. “We’re heading into the final lap.” He then added that it’s ““not just [about] trying not to outstay [our] welcome.”
He continued, “We’re trying to tell one cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end,” he continued. “We’ve known the end for quite some time, and we’re hurtling towards it. Those last images from [the Season 6 finale] showed that. Daenerys is finally coming back to Westeros, Jon Snow is king of the North, and Cersei is sitting on the Iron Throne. And we know the Night King is up there, waiting for all of them. The pieces are on the board now… and we are heading toward the endgame.”
