I haven’t seen the series because I didn’t have the chance to finish the books so my comment is what it is, probably biased an shallow but for what I have been reading/watching, most critics say that since they ran out of written material, the quality of the show has been steadily declining.
The first session after that pretty much went on the inertia from the previous ones, but when it came to continue the story it quickly became too formulaic and predictable.
Also I am getting a lot of mixed messages, one day I read in the newspaper that chapter 3 was a victory for female representation and against the patriarchy and on the same media, a week later I read another piece on how GoT has betrayed all the female characters in the series (I suppose by committing the sin of not meeting the expectations of the commentator)
Anyway, what is clear to me is that like many of the latest forms of mass entertainment, a TV show is no longer a TV show, it has to meet a detailed and long list of criteria in order to be considered kosher. Which, if in my opinion is precisely against what George R.R. Martin’s intended to do with the books. I clearly remember reading the books and being shocked on amount of characters that where developed and killed in the space of a couple of chapters.
