Finally some good Game of Thrones news

We've put up with a lot, but this is a bridge too far

Right, Game of Thrones producers. We've got a bone to pick with you.

We've made our peace with waiting a year between the series. We get that you randomly kill off primary Game of Thrones characters who we've come to know and love. (Not even just humans, direwolves too. Sniff.)

But now the show runners are about to do something truly unforgivable.

The next season, which is going to be the penultimate EVER, is only going to be seven episodes long. Yep, that's three whole episodes shorter than all the previous series. Or, to put it in even scarier terms, if the current series was that length, it would be over NEXT WEEK.

The news came from director Jack Bender, who took the helm on episode five (the one where all of our hearts were broken and the words 'hold the door' and Hodor became an emotional minefield). Not content with directing the most traumatic episode of the season, Bender decided that he'd crush our souls a little bit more.

Whilst there hasn't been any explanation as to why they've taken this hideous decision, it's thought that the show and the books are being forced to diverge, as author George RR Martin hasn't finished writing the next GoT book, Winds of Winter, so perhaps the truncated seasons are down to that. But whatever the reasoning, unless they're also going to make each episode two hours long, we're not happy about it. At all.

The good news (we reckon the producers have realised that we're cross) is that the series finale of Game of Thrones is going to be a massive 69 minutes long, which is almost feature length. Plus, it's called 'Winds of Winter', which is also the title of George RR Martin's next Game of Thrones novel, which fans have been eagerly awaiting.