HBO's unwillingness or inability to get one strong director to do the whole season has hurt this more than anything else this time around IMO. Is the story less interesting? Sure, by far. Is the acting not as strong? By a mile. There are other flaws too. But one strong director could've unmuddled this, bringing a vision and depth to this that is sorely lacking, helping get A acting rather than B- work, utilizing better camerawork (this season has been awful), and so forth. There is a reason every Scorsese movie, every Fincher movie, and so forth is strong. The director takes the written words, even if they're mediocre, and makes them shine. He takes Jesse Eisenberg or Jonah Hill or Steve Carrell and makes him an Oscar nominee.
These directors have sucked ***.