Wednesday, July 24, 2019

HBO Programming Chief Chimes in on “GAME OF THRONES” Season 8 Petition and EMMY Nominations



Fact One: The eighth and final season of HBO’s medieval fantasy series “Game of Thrones,” also the shortest at only six episodes, was the least positively reviewed installment of the near-decade-long saga. Fact Two: The reception has actually been so bad that disgruntled fans have started an online petition to have HBO remake the season without the original show-runners whom they blame for the poor quality. Fact Three: Despite the bile being thrown at the swan song of “Game of Thrones” its last season still managed to break record nomination numbers in this year’s Primetime Emmys. But what exactly does the network think about these?

According to Entertainment Weekly, HBO gave their two cents to many questions regarding their recently-concluded series “Game of Thrones,” including their opinions about the fans’ negative opinions. This happened during a press tour of the Television Critics’ Association (TCA) in Beverly Hills Wednesday, July 24, where HBO programming head Casey Bloys talking about how the network is treating the poor audience reception to Season 8, as manifest in the online petition for a do-over with no involvement from Dave Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Said petition is now just a few hundred thousand short of becoming an even 2 million signatures.

Bloys remarked that when a TV show that has been extremely popular with many viewers both for its perceived quality and length of broadcast is to be concluded, those many people would have varyingly different ideas on what would be a perfect ending for it. He also says HBO is not taking the Change.org petition seriously saying, “The petition shows a lot of enthusiasm and passion for the show, but it wasn’t something we seriously considered. I can’t imagine another network would.” That would be understandable considering “Thrones” did extremely well for nominations at the upcoming 71st Primetime Emmy Awards.

For its last hurrah, “Game of Thrones” garnered for HBO an unprecedented 32 nominations. The TV Critics’ Association then asked Casey Bloys at how the network chose who among their cast would be pushed as Primetime Emmy nominees. Only seven lead stars got HBO support while Gwendoline Christie and Alfie Allen had to submit their own names for consideration. “It’s a challenge for a series that big if everybody submitted themselves, everybody could cancel [each other out],” Bloys explains why they did not go overboard with the Primetime Emmy submissions, letting the cast do themselves.

“Game of Thrones” Season 8 aired on HBO from April to May 2019. Petitioners when asked about the Emmy nomination sweep have pooh-poohed it as merely ATAS considering the actors’ performances for the whole series run instead of the season alone, and maintains that the conclusion must be remade. The Primetime Emmys air September 22.

Image courtesy of HBO

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