Game of Thrones Fans Are Review-Bombing Breaking Bad on IMDb in a Bid for TV’s Top Spot

For 13 years, one TV hour sat on the IMDb throne without breaking a sweat. Then a new challenger showed up, and the fandoms broke out the pitchforks.

The long-reigning champ meets a fresh threat

Breaking Bad ended back in September 2013, and ever since, Season 5 standout Ozymandias has been the site’s untouchable big dog. It carried a pristine 10.0 average from more than 1,400 user reviews — a wild run by any metric.

Plenty of heavy hitters have taken swings at that crown over the last decade — The Last of Us, Dexter, BoJack Horseman, and even Game of Thrones proper, which racked up three separate 9.9s. Strong company. But the newest episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms arrived and immediately posted a 10.0, making it the highest-rated entry in the entire Thrones universe, and one of the top-rated TV episodes on the site, period.

And then the gloves came off

Once that perfect score popped up, Episode 5 of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms got smacked with a wave of one-star ratings, the kind of flood that screams scoreboard defense rather than honest feedback. The message from those users read loud and clear: protect Ozymandias at all costs.

Within hours, the counterpunch landed. A fresh surge of one-stars started appearing on Ozymandias itself, many with revenge-y captions that stop pretending otherwise. A sampler:

"An Eye For an Eye. This is a brick in the wall of revenge. You are what stood in the way of the recognition that other shows have earned."

"Bunch of crybabies can't handle a different show in a different genre being good so you review bomb every episode from different shows that even get close to a 10/10. Finally, you get your comeuppance."

"I love this episode a lot 10/10 for sure but don't mess with Game of Thrones audience."

We have seen this playbook before

Ratings pile-ons across big aggregators have become a recurring fandom pastime. Different reasons, same tactic. Recent examples include:

• Star Wars spinoff The Acolyte catching waves of one-stars tied to its push for a more diverse cast
• The Witcher: Blood Origin getting hammered by fans upset over Henry Cavill leaving the main series
• The Last of Us taking heat over a much-discussed queer-centric episode some insisted was not in the games

What the numbers actually tell you

This latest skirmish turns a recommendation tool into a tug-of-war rope. It makes browsing feel like sorting through turf-war graffiti instead of gauging the room.

Here’s the part that matters: both of the episodes at the center of this dust-up are elite television. Ozymandias earned its legend a long time ago. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms just delivered a chapter that hit hard enough to rattle an institution. That deserves cheers, not trench warfare.