Game of Thrones

Here's what you do. You rip every episode off Max. It's easy, their tech game isn't nearly as tight as Netflix's. You get out your scalpel software, maybe your AI agent, and you cut out nearly every storyline that wasn't there from the beginning. The Starks were there, the Lannisters were there, Dany was there, the White Walkers were there; Brienne was not, the Unsullied were not, Dorne was not, and so on. You retain enough of these side plots to make their intersections with the core plot comprehensible -- for instance, you introduce Brienne and maintain her key events, but only to the end that her role in the Long Night makes sense. She gets nothing of her own. Perhaps you lose entire quadrants of Martin's map, entire quarters of his books. Perhaps you never see the Eyrie or Pyke. Certainly your taste of Essos is limited. And you know what, maybe you never meet Brienne. I'd have to think through that one. At any rate, you're left with 2-3 seasons of television, not 8. If that doesn't feel long enough, consider how emotionally invested you get in a two hour movie. You're left with the Stark arc mirrored against the salvation of Westeros from the endless winter, and it's riveting. You watch it every fall, when winter is coming, when high fantasy hits its peak for the year, like red leaves, apples, and fantasy football. You watch three episodes on Saturday and the Packers on Sunday. You revisit every year because in this condensed form, without all that baggage swamping you, it's the best fiction has to offer, and fiction is the best fall has to offer.