I thought the show did very well until they ran out of material to adapt and started having to improvise. The showrunners had a great talent for putting things on the screen, but they couldn't write their way out of a paper bag.

(disclaimer, I only watched the first few seasons, plus a couple of episodes in S8 when a friend was organizing watch parties)

Got it, thanks.

I actually had a conversation with someone who had seen the promos for game of thrones season 1 or heard about it somewhere, and we had this huge conversation because I had just finished reading the books and they didn't even know there was a book series.

After trying the first season a couple times and not getting into it, I didn't really follow it so I'm not sure if most viewers even know that it's based on a book series.

I have seen a lot of articles about Martin not publishing any new books though?

I am going to give the show a third try eventually, but I just liked it the second time as much as the first for how poorly I thought the books were being adapted.

It's good to hear that you enjoyed it, maybe I was just too close to the books still. The last time I watched game of thrones was maybe 5 years ago.

Hopefully my brain has decayed enough to give it another shot.

But then everybody hates the last two seasons with a passion, right? And that's like 30% of the show?

Mmm.