“Game of Thrones” Season 7 episodes to be the longest yet

Season 7 of HBO's “Game of Thrones”, the massively popular fantasy series based on the books of George RR Martin, will bow on the premium network July 16, but devoted followers will soon notice (if they haven't already) that this penultimate season is the shortest one yet. Seasons 1-6 have all featured 10 episodes, each roughly an hour long on average; Season 7 will only feature seven episodes. While those missing three hours of swords-and-sorcery action will surely be felt, the fact that some of these episodes are the series' longest yet will go a long way towards closing that gap.

As the HBO Facebook page for “Game of Thrones” confirms (via community page “Watchers on the Wall”), three of the upcoming season's episodes will exceed an hour in length, with the two final episodes each breaking the record for the show's longest episode so far. That record was set by last year's Season 6 finale “The Winds of Winter” which weighed in at 68 minutes. The first five episodes are between 50 and 63 minutes, but episode 6 stands at 71 minutes and the season finale at a whooping 81 minutes.

It's looking like episodes 1-5 are going to be the standard fare that fans have come to know and love, all setting the stage for the mini-movies that are the final two episodes.