Can you feel it, people?
Sure, the weather outside might be warming up, and summer may be all but here, but believe me this: winter is coming, and it will be here in less than seven weeks with the arrival of Game Of Thrones‘ seventh season.
And as if we weren’t lucky enough that Thrones was returning, according to The Telegraph, the season premiere of Game of Thrones will be its longest opening episode since the pilot.
But does this actually mean anything, or is it merely a statistical anomaly? Well, it’s important to point out which episodes have also run over the average runtime.
via Uproxx:
Clocking in at 59 minutes, the yet unnamed episode is longer than the average episode by four minutes. That might not sound like much until you realize most of the most memorable scenes throughout the series take place in those extra minutes.
So far, nine episodes have run over an hour: ‘Winter is Coming’ (Season 1, Episode 1), ‘Valar Morghulis’ (Season 2, Episode 10), ‘Mhysa’ (Season 3, Episode 10), ‘The Children’ (Season 4, Episode 10), ‘High Sparrow’ (Season 5, Episode 3), ‘Hardhome’ (Season 5, Episode 8), ‘Mother’s Mercy’ (Season 5, Episode 10), ‘Battle of the Bastards’ (Season 6, Episode 9), and ‘The Winds of Winter’ (Season 6, Episode 10). With a few exceptions, these episodes happen latter in their respective seasons.
So as you can tell, whenever Thrones decides to go over it’s average 55-minute episode, it’s usually for a pretty damn good reason. Given where season six left off, the writers are going to have quite a lot to tackle during the season seven premiere. Between Cersei blowing up King’s Landing, Jon Snow becoming the King in the North, and Daenerys finally making her away across The Narrow Sea, look for the season seven premiere to be one of the show’s most action-packed episodes yet.
Game Of Thrones seventh season premiere on July 16, 2017.
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