IMDb ratings are an imperfect metric for measuring how “good” or “bad” an episode of television or movie is. There’s nothing stopping John Q. Batman from torpedoing The Shawshank Redemption‘s 9.2 — currently tied with The Godfather for the top spot on the IMDb 250 — so that The Dark Knight can inch closer to officially being named The Greatest Film of All Time (according to random nerds with an IMDb log-in). But the “completely and irrevocably rigged” system is still a big deal, because it’s fun to debate which episode of Dog with a Blog is the best episode of Dog with a Blog (all of them), or whether Breaking Bad‘s peak is better than Game of Thrones‘ finest hour.
This even extends to the people who make the shows.
After winning all the Emmys over the weekend, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss spoke with IMDb Live about the penultimate episode of season six, “Battle of the Bastards,” which was immediately deemed 10/10 Would Watch by fans. “After that episode aired, we were talking to [director and secret MVP] Miguel Sapochnik every hour, and all we kept doing ― we didn’t look at the ratings, we didn’t look at any of that stuff ― we were checking the IMDb episode rating,” Benioff revealed. “Because our friend Rian Johnson directed the ‘Ozymandias’ episode of Breaking Bad, which was the 10.0, and we’re like, ‘We gotta get freakin’ Rian!’ ”
They got freakin’ Rian, but only briefly. “Battle” currently has a 9.9 rating (as does “The Winds of Winter,” “The Rains of Castamere,” and “Hardhome”), but “Ozymandias” is still going strong with a 10.0. “Somebody screwed us,” Weiss said. “I think Rian opened over 25,000 IMDb accounts and just voted us down.” Conspiracy theories notwithstanding, Johnson is directing Star Wars: Episode VIII, a feat that ends every argument. “Oh cool, your little TV show won a bunch of Emmys. Well, I’m directing the next Star Wars movie.”
Game. Set. Rian.
(In case you’re wondering, the lowest rated episode of Game of Thrones on IMDb is season five’s “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken” with a 7.9; for Breaking Bad, it’s season three’s “Más” with an 8.7. Breaking Bad was really good.)
(Via the Huffington Post)
