I took it as Lou saying that it's a B or B+ show the last 2 seasons; and the reason for that is because it's too expensive and taxing on the actors and viewers to keep going at such a slow pace. The actors are going to die of old age before the show ever ended at the pace it was going. So because of that, they had to dumb it down a smidgen and start working towards wrapping it up; and now it's more like a B or B+ show, which is personally fine with me at this point.
But as a whole body of work (seasons 1-current), it's clearly an A or A+ show....IMO.
Not quite my opinion, but not too far off. I will say this...when GOT is at it's very very best...I think it is as good as anything on TV. What I consider it's best is grand, dramatic moments. What in wrestling would be called "high spots." When they build to something, or sometimes even just spring it on the viewer, it is very impressive, and it's hard to beat. The execution of Ned Stark, Danarys walking out of the fire with dragons, Red Wedding, several battles...really, really good stuff. Sheer "bigness" and eye candy is part of it, like in some of the battle scenes, but it's not JUST that...to say so would be to give the show too little credit.
I do think that the first couple seasons were a solid A- or A show. I never thought it was the best show on TV (let alone the best ever), and I always had some problems with it, but it consistently delivered enough of the "good stuff" to be a win.
I think later seasons have dropped off considerably, with storylines that stalled and went nowhere, plots that took up huge amounts of screen time and didn't change the playing field a bit, and much of the running time devoted to very repetitive scenes. I will never, ever forgive the Sparrows storyline. It came out of nowhere, it didn't make a whole lot of sense as it was depicted onscreen, it was pretty boring, it mostly distracted from and wasted what could have been a better storyline (Cersei vs. Margaery), and left virtually nothing in it's wake. If you fell asleep for the entire Sparrows storyline and tuned back in, you would have missed NOTHING. That was the most egregious example, but there were a lot of things that were either almost wholly unnecessary, or were dragged out well past their freshness date (Ramsey's cruelties/torture of Reek, Arya's training).
I do think the fell pretty hard to C+/B- level, with occasional moments of elevation here and there in the last couple seasons.
I think this season the show has returned to form somewhat. I think it is back to delivering the goods so far, in terms of high drama. It's not quite at it's early seasons peak, because there isn't the same sort of development around events, and it's not quite delivered a signature moment, but it is definitely doing what it does best storytelling wise. Solid B+ so far to me.
So if I was rating the series:
In it's best moments: A+
In it's best seasons: A
Overall series currently: B
Current Season: B+ (with all signs pointing up from here)
Overall series if it finishes on it's current trajectory: A-
It's one of those things, like Christopher Nolan movies...it's not enough to say it's good, I like it. If you don't say it's the best ever, people think act like you're a hater.