Game of Thrones: The Complete Fifth Season (Steelbook)(Blu-ray)

+++Warning, this contains spoilers from the prior season, but no major season five spiolers+++The fifth season of GoT was adapted from parts of three different novels in the Song of Ice and Fire series, namely, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons, and a Storm of Swords. Of course, the show started catching up with the books (as George R.R. Martin is a notoriously slow writer) and the producers and writers of the show were doing their best to get as much material from the books before they would have to essentially make the rest of the story up with just a rough outline from Martin. This season sees a shift in many of the story arcs of the various characters. After the deaths of Joffrey and Tywin (finally) Varys and Tyrion flee Westeros to Meereen to meet Daenerys, whom Varys believes may be worthy of the Iron Throne. Jon is torn between an offer from Stannis and his duty to the Night's Watch, with the ever-increasing threat of the White Walkers looming, and Sansa goes from one bad situation to another. Cersei is basically ruling as a transition from Joffrey to Tommen, who is now set to marry Margaery Tyrell, which does not exactly thrill Cersei. Jaime and Bronn travel to Dorne to bring Myrcella back to King's Landing and have to deal with a revenge-seeking Ellaria. Arya sails to Braavos to attempt to cash in on her mystical coin to learn from Jaqen H'ghar. The season ends on numerous cliffhangers that leave the fate of nearly every single main character in some kind of doubt and/or jeopardy.For those who get the blu-ray set, the A/V quality is again top-notch. As far as extras go, as has been the case with the prior seasons, each episode has an in-episode guide that can be played, a recap at the beginning of the episodes, and a preview at the end. There are twelve different commentary tracks. Every episode except episode seven gets at least one commentary track with various members of the cast along with the director and/or writer of the episode. Episodes eight and nine each have multiple commentary tracks (three, and two respectively). Then there are a series of behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes that range in length from just under eight minutes to just under thirty minutes. There are also some animated shorts that feature voice work by the actors in character, then there is an animated Dance With Dragons animated feature that outlines the Targaryen civil war, and finally about eight minutes of deleted scenes. So, there are again a ton of extras if you like going through them, but like in the prior season releases, to go through everything you will have to watch each episode multiple times, so it may be helpful to pick and choose what you watch.Overall, the season is very good. The storyline advances well, and like in prior seasons no character is safe from the possibility of being killed off, which makes for a lot of edge-of-your-seat suspense. It is very violent and has a lot of sex and nudity in it, so it is most definitely not a family-friendly show (or something that someone that is easily offended would go for). That said, it is very well acted and mostly well-written. Of course, because it is an adaptation of extremely long books, there are some storylines in the books (and many characters) that never appear in the series. This season, I would say the standouts among the cast are Iwan Rheon who plays Ramsay Bolton, Sophie Turner whose character arc is greatly expanded this season, and Maisie Williams. That said, the entire cast nails all of their characters and do an extremely good job. So, if you have been a fan of the first four seasons, you will very likely enjoy the fifth season. If you have not yet seen the series, you definitely have to start at episode one and watch all the way through, otherwise, almost nothing will make sense if you jump into the series over halfway through.

I've become a big fan of Game of Thrones. The early seasons tended to be a bit on the "risque" side... partially because HBO wanted that (to sell a new series people might not ready for) and partly (and appropriately) to point out the DECADENCE of the "Seven Kingdoms" and many of the main characters (in all cases, so far, to illustrate how they change over time... see, for example, Tyrion Lannister)This may have been the best season of the series so far... and that's saying a lot. We're finally seeing things coming together... all the prior seasons have been setup, and rising-action, and how we're into the meat of the story. Which, ultimately, is going to be "how do the seven kingdoms unite, and thus are able to defeat the White Walkers?"Well, we see now. We have had the "setup" characters removed, for the most part. We now see which sides people will fall onto, and we know who is going to sit on the iron throne when it's all said and done. We know that the "fire" in this "song" is Dani and her dragons (and while she's going to ride one of them into battle, there are two other dragons who still lack riders... my guess is that the other riders will be Tyrion and Jon, but time will tell)At the end of this season, Dani seems to be lost... but we see that she's going back to her original storyline (which opens up things for some very interesting developments in Season 6). Jon seems to be "lost" as well, but we've seen people come back from the dead in this series before... both in good ways and in bad ones... and never forget, those on the wall never get to leave until they die... so this is the only way that Jon can leave the wall without being an oathbreaker!Aria Stark is clearly on a very dark road... with the questions posed in this season, and how the season ends for her, all about "who she is" and more importantly "who she wants to be." I think we can all tell that she won't remain part of the "faceless men" sect forever, but she's learning things that will make her a formidable force in the future (whether for good or for evil, though, we can't be certain, can we?)Sansa Stark's story is very, VERY dark... and has been from the middle of the first season, if you were paying attention. She's lost all of her innocence now, and while she SEEMS to be on the side of "good," I have strong misgivings about her as well... I can imagine her eventually becoming a major villain, taking the role currently filled by "Littlefinger" (who I'm convinced is the real "big bad" behind everything we've seen go wrong in this series!)What remains unclear is... where does Jaimie Lannister fall into the grand scheme of things? We're being given hints that he may well become one of the major heroes, though I personally suspect he'll simply redeem himself by ridding us of a major threat, sacrificing himself in the bargain.We see the end of the "War of the Kings" this season... Stannis Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, Rob Stark, Mance Rayder... all gone. There is, once again, only one throne. And that throne, at this point, is held by a weak, easily manipulated (albeit nice) boy. We can all see where this is going... a full-on "cold war" between the "High Sparrow" and Circe Lannister. The boy king will not end up in charge in any case, and will undoubtedly be a casualty, regardless of which of the two wins in the end.Which will set us up for the inevitable "rising action" of the Seven Kingdoms, under either the Sparrow or Circe, being invaded by Dani and her newly re-acquired Dothraki hoard, along with all her other forces (including her three dragons). And then, to the final climactic conflict where the White Walkers will be defeated (and, I presume, they'll start getting annual summers and winters!)