Game of Thrones TV Spinoff Expectations May Be Too High

After seven breathtaking seasons, Game of Thrones will finally conclude its breathtakingly complex, heartbreaking story when its final episodes arrive in 2019. However, this won't be the last we see of Westeros and Essos. Back in May 2017, plans for a spinoff show were revealed, with HBO eventually confirming that five spinoff scripts are currently being looked at for development-- all of them prequels.

We know George R.R. Martin will be involved with the development of these shows in some capacity, which is important for the success of whichever show HBO decides to move into production. However, it's uncertain just how involved he'll be (he has been in talks with at least four writers), which may be worrying for fans of the show.

To see how important George R.R. Martin is to the success of any spinoff, you need only look at Game of Thrones in recent years.

When the series began, George R.R. Martin had already completed and published five novels, detailing each character and kingdom. There was a clear, meticulously planned path for each character... and there were a lot of characters. Adapting that to television rather than film was a wise choice because each important twist and turn could be thoroughly explored. And with Martin on board, he was able to oversee the major creative decisions and ensure the show was true to his vision and the story novel fans had been familiar with for years.

The quality of writing in the show was exceptionally high from the first to the fifth season, in which we saw the events of the novels "A Game of Thrones" to "A Dance of Dragons" unfold. Characters we thought we'd hate forever grew into characters we couldn't help but admire, and victories we thought would surely come to pass turned into tragic failures. Time and time again, the show kept us guessing, which is a rare quality in television today, it's also what made the show's last two seasons feel slightly inferior.

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HBO's Game of Thrones completely caught up with the events of Martin's novels by season six, so there was no longer a proper structure or path for showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to follow, though they'd known the major turning points they had to include for a while. It was after season six that George R.R. Martin chose to step back from the show so he could focus on finishing the sixth novel in A Song of Ice and Fire, "The Winds of Winter," which he has been writing since at least 2010. It's clear that this decision, though exciting news for fans of the novels, meant that the quality of writing for the show has and will likely continue to suffer.

The larger plot points, such as Bran's revelation about Jon Snow's parentage, were masterfully done. For the most part, while the large battle scenes and other moments of intense action continue to receive praise by fans and critics alike, other aspects of the show have received more and more criticism. Abrupt ends to ultimately pointless subplots and rushed character ending, like Littlefinger's, for example. His story seemed to be building up to something grand, not unlike a few other characters, only to be cut short in the seventh season by a relatively anti-climactic death.

One increasingly common complaint is that the show now suffers from pacing issues. Where characters would spend entire seasons travelling from one location to another -- like Jaime and Brienne -- the show now completely glosses over their journeys, causing them to seemingly cross vast expanses in a short span of time. (we're looking at you, Varys!) It appears evident that the showrunners, lacking precise details, have resolved to streamline the plot to quickly get to the end.

Game of Thrones needs George R.R. Martin and his creative vision in order to maintain its quality. That implies that any spinoff would also require Martin's direct involvement in order to succeed. Especially since audiences are likely to compare a spinoff, almost immediately, to Game of Thrones, which, though unavoidable, doesn't really seem fair.

But despite our expectations, we have to remember that a spinoff can stand on its own. To prove that, we'll take a look at one that achieved success despite initially clinging to its parent show. We're talking about AMC's Better Call Saul, a spinoff of the comparably successful Breaking Bad.

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Breaking Bad spanned five seasons and built a large fanbase with its relatably complicated characters and their shocking developments. Its tone was just as grim as Game of Thrones, and toward the end, there was a huge demand for a spinoff, one that was eventually realized with Better Call Saul. The subsequent prequel follows Saul Goodman and his life prior to the events of Breaking Bad. While Saul was a memorable character, he didn't strike many as being one with a particularly interesting past -- certainly not interesting enough to hang an entire hour-long drama off of. Better Call Saul showed us just how wrong those first impressions were.

The spinoff managed to flawlessly recapture the qualities we loved in its predecessor without resorting to gratuitous appearances from familiar characters or forced callbacks to memorable moments. Better Call Saul proves an important point: Spinoffs need to be able to offer familiar feelings while introducing something completely new and unexpected. There's a good chance that a Game of Thrones spinoff will be able to do just that, given the rich world and history of George R.R. Martin's novels and novellas. The only question is, just how good is that chance if GRRM isn't there to give the show a nudge in the right direction?

You could argue that one of the reasons Better Call Saul is successful is because it's being written by the same creative minds behind Breaking Bad: Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. But the Game of Thrones spinoff shows currently being considered may not have the creator of their stories completely involved. In fact, D.B Weiss and David Benioff won't be involved at all. It's possible that a spinoff will be able to offer all the complexity, tragedy and magic we loved about earlier seasons, but right now, it's doubtful.

Of course, we cannot dismiss the possibility that even if it doesn't exactly recapture the magic of the series, a spinoff will be able to offer something just as exciting in completely new ways. It's extremely risky, of course since the novels and novellas all possess similar tones and themes. We know that Martin is still sorting out the spinoff scripts, and that he approves of the writers he's working with. In fact, he's made a point to state that these writers love Westeros just as much as he does, which is reassuring. What's also reassuring is the knowledge that whatever story we do end up seeing unfold will have been approved by him. But will that be enough? He admitted himself that Weiss and Benioff would be "a tough act to follow." We'll just have to find out.

It's probably best that we don't set our expectations too high, no matter how tempting that may seem. Aside from the fact that Martin will have little to do with the actual writing in the spinoff, you have to keep in mind that we will have already seen the massive overarching story the spinoff builds up to. Game of Thrones is a story about the world changing; the wheel breaking. The series is all about a crucial turning point in the history of that world. Everything set before is just extra history. Make no mistake, we have no doubt that we will come to adore the new characters and fear for their deaths, but we don't want character deaths to become a gimmick in an attempt to keep audiences interested. The spinoff has to give as much meaning to each moment and character as its predecessor.

That being said, just as GRRM's novella series, Tales of Dunk and Egg, ultimately only serve to elaborate on the history of this fantasy world, a spinoff show should only be expected to expand on the little details of a world we already love. If it surpasses those expectations, that's phenomenal. Considering the circumstances however, raising your expectations may only serve to disappoint. As they say: hope for the best, expect the worst.

Game of Thrones will return with its final season in 2019.