Game Of Thrones suggests a new way to tell stories on TV

It suggests a genuinely new way to tell serialized stories on TV: by organizing episodes around theme, rather than plot.
Briefly, the traditional way to structure an episode of a serialized drama on television involves taking the season’s major goal (Walter White wants to set up a meth-dealing operation), then breaking it down into smaller, component parts (he needs to contact someone who can move his product). Each episode can then be about one of those parts, allowing for a traditional three-act structure with a beginning, middle, and end. When done perfectly, as on The Wire or Breaking Bad, this can feel so organic that viewers don’t even realize the longer story is actually a long series of interlocking smaller stories. There’s also the less-used method of telling a long series of short stories about individual characters that gradually cohere into a central mass by season’s end. Mad Men, The Sopranos, and Lost have all used this strategy, but it’s murderously difficult to pull off, so few shows even attempt it.

 read article by Todd VanDerWerff
In restructuring its foundation, Game Of Thrones built a bigger, better second season  | TV | For Our Consideration | The A.V. Club