Movies, television, and books have the ability to transport their viewers and readers into a new world. Whether it is getting to peek behind the curtain at a world you’re familiar with or stepping into an imagined world, storytelling has the unique capacity to completely immerse its audience. As a long-time reader and unstoppable binge-watcher, I can tell you that this ability comes with its caveats. Powerful storytelling creates a sense of community within the audience. We get committed. We know every piece of the world we’ve been indoctrinated into, all the nuances of the characters, and we eagerly sit on the edge of our seats, our notepads at the ready for the next piece of our story’s puzzle.
But what happens when the world you’ve immersed yourself in abruptly halts? You’ve come to the end of your episode, the end of your series adaptation, the end of the most recently released book in your series, and now your comfort zone is frozen in time. Anticipation comes to an all-time high, your scrutinization of the plot is more heightened than ever, and expectations skyrocket. I’m guilty of this. I get sucked into stories and once I do, they live rent-free in my head. But here’s the thing: nobody likes a one-sided relationship.
Gaps in the media we consume can be the pitfall of an audience’s relationship with a series. Just like in any relationship, time together matters. The euphoria you feel when you first fall in love with a story can be easily derailed by the agony of waiting. Scorned lovers can be cruel. Every day, month, and year spent waiting to be allowed back into the world fans were yanked out of raises the stakes of the material being delivered.
Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones
The easiest example of this is George R.R. Martin’s beloved fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire adapted into the television series Game of Thrones. The last book in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was released in 2011, the same year HBO premiered season one of Game of Thrones. As of 2024, Martin still has two books to complete in his series whilst Game of Thrones concluded in 2019.
The television series had four seasons based on source material from Martin before crafting the rest of the story in the writer’s room. Many believe this is where things started to go downhill for Game of Thrones — me included. The gap in the fiction from the creator of the story itself led to the drawn-out death of the show. Famously, fans were outraged by the final season of Game of Thrones and largely unsatisfied with the season prior. The characters changed drastically, the plot was turned on its head, and the ending was far too hasty, leaving the anticipation for Martin’s series at a roaring boil.
The gap between the seventh and the final season was the longest fans ever had to wait for the release of Game of Thrones. The two-year wait was met with not only the least number of episodes out of all the seasons prior, but the overwhelming complaint was that the conclusion was rushed. Though the time in production would counter these arguments, the sentiment rings true with almost every Game of Thrones fan I’ve ever met. So, it would seem the story they got did not justify the time they waited. The gap between seasons made the weight of fantasy fans’ expectations even heavier and Game of Thrones crumbled beneath it.
The disastrous end to Game of Thrones puts all the more pressure on Martin’s sixth installment of his series, The Winds of Winter, and the seventh installment, A Dream of Spring. These promised books will be the last chance for the lovers of the series, both the written and the televised versions, to see justice done for the characters and plot they’ve come to love. However, George R.R. Martin has a brutal history of playing hot and cold with his audience having teased the release of The Winds of Winter since 2010. That’s 15 years of false promises, George. The fans have turned into an angry mob. Martin has clearly felt the heat from his fans’ torches, saying in 2019 that they can “imprison” him if The Winds of Winter isn’t finished by July 2020. One X user summarized the outcome perfectly:
send in the feds i guess https://t.co/5hF9N9R8FP
— Shannon Woodward (@shannonwoodward) July 29, 2020
The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor
Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire are easy targets when talking about the stakes for gaps between television and book series, but they’re not alone. The creators of one of my absolute favorite television shows, The Haunting of Hill House based on Shirley Jackson’s 1959 horror novel, have made a string of literary horror adaptations on Netflix. After the highly praised 2018 season, Mike Flanagan released an adaptation of Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw in 2020 entitled The Haunting of Bly Manor. This new installment was highly anticipated and naturally fans compared the merits of both seasons.
If you’re like me, you may binge the previous season before the new one comes out. This has its own issues. Rewatching the season that made you fall in love with the series in the first place can heighten your standards for the new one. For me, watching The Haunting of Hill House after missing it for two long years right before The Haunting of Bly Manor’s release led to a letdown. The characters didn’t win my heart like they did before, I lost the investment I had in the storyline from constantly comparing it, and, in general, I became too harsh a critic.
As Bookstr writer Camila Fagen wrote in 2020 following The Haunting of Bly Manor, the two-year hiatus after The Haunting of Hill House had fans “anxiously waiting for the horror anthology series to return.” Much like Fagen, I enjoyed both seasons, but I’d have to agree that Bly Manor didn’t fully deliver the stewing expectations left from the conclusion of the previous series. It would seem others agreed with IMDb ranking The Haunting of Bly Manor a 7.4/10 and The Haunting of Hill House a 8.5/10.
The Hunger Games: Trilogy Versus Prequel
More recently in the spotlight is Suzanne Collin’s fiercely loved YA dystopian book series The Hunger Games after the 2020 release of her prequel series, The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes, and its recent 2023 movie adaptation. With the second installment of the series, The Sunrise on the Reaping, released on March 18th, 2025, Collin’s fans are sure to be back tallying their scorecards. The ten-year gap between the final novel in The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, and The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes left the book open to serious scrutiny. If you’re going to bring back one of the most loved series in the past few decades after a lengthy hiatus, you’re going to need to hit a home run.
The overwhelming opinion is that Collins missed the mark, with many reviews citing the lengthy novel’s inability to garner the same love for the characters of the prequel as they held for the trilogy. The 2023 movie adaptation met the same criticism, scoring a measly 64% on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the first movie in the trilogy’s 84%. Though it was exciting to be back in the world of The Hunger Games, I found The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes film completely disappointing. Such a large gap following the conclusion of such a beloved series still felt like a rushed job. The love I held for Katniss and Peeta had nowhere to go with what felt like half-baked leading characters. Let’s hope The Sunrise on the Reaping can meet the standards of Collin’s previous series, but between you and me, I’ve lost interest.
We all know great storytelling takes time and that only great stories can truly capture the hearts of avid readers and viewers. However, authors and media creators beware: being on the edge of your seat for too long can make you slip out of the chair. These waiting periods between installments of our favorite series can lead even the most die-hard fans — maybe especially the die-hard fans — to put these worlds under a microscope. And once they do, it better live up to the hype.
Need something to pass the time as you wait on The Winds of Winter? Click here.
Want to read potential inspiration for the next The Haunting series? Click here.
