Should ‘Game Of Thrones’ Continue After Season Seven?

The Game of Thrones showrunners have repeatedly said that the show would only get seven seasons. The idea is to continue it in line with the books, which George R.R. Martin says will have seven instalments; one for each kingdom in Westeros. Many fans like to know when a show will end, especially one as long and complicated as this one. Fans get to know that they will get to know the final outcome eventually.

However, the HBO bosses have now said that Game of Thrones will get an eighth season. According to Entertainment Weekly, Michael Lombardo, president of programming at the network, has said that there was never an internal conversation that the show would only get seven seasons. There was just the question of how many extra seasons it would continue on for.

He went on to say that Dan Weiss and David Benioff, the showrunners, have always thought that there would be two more seasons after the sixth, which is expected to air in April of next year. At the moment, it looks like the eighth season will be the final one.

Considering many fans expected the seventh season of Game of Thrones to be the last, should it really continue past that? It really does depend on whether the showrunners can continue the storyline; whether there is enough to keep the seasons interesting. One benefit that Game of Thrones has is that the seasons are only 10 episodes long, unlike the usual 22-episode seasons most shows get. There is not as much content to find, so filler episodes are not as likely.

In the past, shows that were only supposed to run for a certain amount of time have slightly struggled after continuing. Supernatural was only supposed to be a five-season storyline. Eric Kripke had the plan, and the first five seasons seamlessly fit together. Misha Collins and Mark Sheppard both confirmed this with International Business Times. However, CW chose to renew the show for a sixth season. A change of executive producer and direction led to seasons six and seven being the worst, according to many fans. Now there is the question with the end of each season: will it be the last?

The problem with continuing a show past the originally intended run is that new storylines have to be considered. Charmed believed that season four would be the last, so the fourth season storyline, much of which was supposed to be in the fifth season, was rushed. It led to problems with a storyline when the show was eventually renewed.

It seems that, behind the scenesm Game of Thrones was never supposed to end with the seventh season, but with an eighth. That could save the show from poor ratings if HBO does decide to continue it on.

[Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images]