Game of Thrones season 7 and 8: How many episodes are in the new series?
Last night's season premiere was the first of seven new episodes, down from the usual 10.
Fans have just six more instalments to look forward to, with the feature-length finale set to air on Monday August 28.
To compensate for the shorter run, many of the episodes will have extended running times, with the season finale clocking in at a feature-length 81 minutes.
The cast have teased that the epic nature of the story means that they have spent the same amount of time filming as they usually would for a 10-hour season.
Kit Harington, who plays Jon Snow, said: “Season seven has much more ambition. There are less episodes this year, so they spent more money on those episodes. So, the whole scale of it is up.”
Iain Glen, who plays Ser Jorah Mormont, added: “I think the scale and size of the set pieces, the world that is being created, it's just getting more and more extraordinary and they feel they need that time to shoot seven hours as opposed to 10.”
Here is a full list of the episodes and their running time:
- Episode 1 – Dragonstone: 59 minutes
- Episode 2 – Stormborn: 59 minutes
- Episode 3 – The Queen’s Justice: 63 minutes
- Episode 4: 50 minutes
- Episode 5: 59 minutes
- Episode 6: 71 minutes
- Episode 7: 81 minutes
How many episodes are in Game of Thrones season 8?
Next year’s run will be even shorter, and will wrap up the story in just six episodes.
However, it has been rumoured that each episode will be at least 80 minutes long.
Showrunner David Benioff explained to Deadline why the show is ending after season eight.
He said: “The thing that has excited us from the beginning, back to the way we pitched to HBO is, it's not supposed to be an ongoing show, where every season it's trying to figure out new story lines.
“We wanted it to be one giant story, without padding it out to add an extra 10 hours, or because people are still watching it.
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“We wanted something where, if people watched it end to end, it would make sense as one continuous story. We're definitely heading into the end game now.”
Season six saw the show overtake the books series that it is based on.
George RR Martin is currently working on the sixth novel in his series, The Winds of Winter, which he has said will be released this year.
The final book, A Dream of Spring, has no firm release date and is not expected to arrive before Game of Thrones ends.
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