'The night is long and full of ERRORS': Game of Thrones Rotten Tomatoes ratings chart lays bare how viewers have been drastically turned off by the show in its final series
- Season Eight of the pop culture juggernaut has been poorly received by viewers
- Compared to previous seasons which averaged high 80 per cent and 90 per cent Rotten Tomato scores, the final season is set to be the lowest rated in its history
- Fans have complained about the rushed pacing of the scripts, poor lighting, the apparently obvious blunders that characters are making and abrupt plot endings
- In general, Rotten Tomatoes scores for the shows have been positive across the first seven seasons, with many episodes receiving ratings exceeding 90 per cent
- Of the high scoring episodes, 22 received a 100 per cent 'fresh' rating and 51 are at 90 per cent or above - Season Eight episode four scored less than 60 per cent
- Episode one scored highly but the following three episodes' ratings plummeted
- Some fans are blaming the lack of original source material as the reason for the show's drop off after the series surpassed author George R.R. Martin's novels
- ***SEASON EIGHT SPOILER WARNING***
The stark fall in this season's Game of Thrones episode ratings has been highlighted by a graph showing damning audience scores on the review site Rotten Tomatoes.
The ratings chart, made by a Reddit user, lays bare how fans have been turned off of the popular fantasy show, which has so far failed to deliver in its eighth and final season - setting it up to be the lowest rated in the entire HBO show's history.
Four episodes into the sixth episode series, fans have complained about the rushed pacing of the scripts, poor lighting, the apparently obvious blunders that characters are making and the abrupt ending of one of its longest running plot lines.
Reddit user dozzinale's graph maps the Rotten Tomatoes ratings of each episode, which has continued to fall after a steady season opener despite the fact that audience numbers have soared over the years.
Criticism is coming: A graphs made by a Reddit user show how fans have begun to turn on the globally popular fantasy show, which has so far seemingly failed to deliver in its eight and final season - setting it up to be the lowest rated in the entire HBO show's history
Four episodes into the sixth episode series, fans have complained about the rushed pacing of the scripts, poor lighting, the apparently obvious blunders that characters are making and the abrupt ending of one of its longest running plot lines
In general, the Rotten Tomatoes scores for the shows have been positive across the first seven seasons, with many episodes receiving ratings exceeding 90 percent.
Of the high scoring episodes, 22 received a 100 per cent 'fresh' rating and 51 are at 90 per cent or above.
Four different episodes from Season Three landed in the top 10, which was rounded out by two from Seasons Four and Five - each and one apiece from Seasons 2 and 6.
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While some season's average ratings have been lowered because of particular episodes - such as season three's 'The Bear and the Maiden Fair' which was slammed for being slow - season eight is the only one to receive consistently sub-par scores.
Another, Season Five's 'Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken', was also heavily criticized for its brutal Sansa-Ramsay plot-line as well as the particularly graphic - and seemingly avoidable - death of one of its most popular characters.
Many season's - such as that of Season One, Two and Four - had the vast majority of their episodes in the high 90 per cent ratings - which allowed the show to develop into a pop culture juggernaut and scoop 38 Emmys from 128 nominations - the second highest of all time behind Saturday Night Live - which has run since 1975.
Many season's - such as that of Season One, Two and Four - had the vast majority of their episodes in the high 90 per cent ratings - which allowed the show to develop into a pop culture juggernaut and scoop 38 Emmys from 128 nominations - the second highest of all time behind Saturday Night Live - which has run since 1975 (characters stand outside the Lannister castle)
But Season Eight has averaged underwhelming scores across the board, which may be seemingly amplified by the enormous expectations the final season promised.
Episode three, which was heralded as the longest battle shot sequence ever created, received a lowly 74 per cent despite its $15 million budget and climatic storyline.
In the immediate aftermath fans complained that the abrupt ending - which culminated in Arya Stark sneaking up on the Night King to stab him in the heart and end the 'Long Night' - subverted chief protagonist Jon Snow's story arc and deprived viewers of the final show down which the previous seven series' had built to.
The introduction of deus ex machina ran counter to previous season's which has allowed the killing off of key characters and houses to progress the story arc.
The co-chief protagonist Daenerys Targaryen's was described as increasingly erratic and her actions ran counter to the strong female leadership she had shown so far
Equally, the strange and ill-thought out battle plans ran were at odds to the actions of important characters who had previously displayed a keen military intelligence.
But all of these criticisms were dwarfed by a far more pressing concern - that fans were unable to tell what was happening because of the poor lighting.
The director, Miguel Sapochnik, said of the episode: 'I wanted to evolve the lighting,' and worked to make the 'storytelling of the lighting evolve with the storytelling of the characters.'
In doing so, he neglected the use extra lighting, relying instead on candles to illuminate character faces as well as heavy shadowing to tell the story of the battle.
But fans were not seemingly unimpressed - as the poor reception suggests - with many declaring they were simply unable to tell what was happening on screen.
And the latest episode, 'The Last of the Starks' saw the scores plummet further into the sub-60 per cent mark, the second time it its run following 'Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken.'
The co-chief protagonist Daenerys Targaryen's was described as increasingly erratic and her actions ran counter to the strong female leadership she had shown so far.
While the sudden and bizarre death of one of her two surviving dragons from a large 'scorpion' crossbow fired from below was again deemed illogical because the two dragons were flying from above and would surely have seen the impending danger.
Vox magazine pinpointed season eight's flaws by suggesting the show had lost the pacing and nuance of its traditional 'three act' dramatic structure in favor of quick pay-offs.
It said: 'As the storytelling speeds toward the show's conclusion, it increasingly doesn't tell stories. It sets stories up and pays them off, and hopes that you don't notice it didn't do anything in between.'
The decision to produce just six episodes, it's lowest ever, has been suggested as the reason for poor pacing.
Although some blame the lack of original source material as the reason for the show's ills, after the series surpassed author George R.R. Martin's novels - forcing show creator's David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to culminate the story arcs through discussions with the author alone.
The show now has two more episodes to save the final season from what some fans would consider a disaster, although viewers won't have to wait long for new material after HBO announced a series of spin-off shows based on the George R.R. Martin Game of Thrones universe, set thousands of years in the past.
Despite the criticisms, the show continues to draw in record viewing figures.
Some 11.8 million people watched the initial broadcast of episode 4, down about 200,000 viewers from the 12.02 million who watched the The Long Night during the same timeframe.
