

I would draw the line between s3 and s4 personally.
But I would never recommend the first three seasons to anyone knowing that the story goes where it goes. I would instead just recommend the books, because they’re definitely better and the only downside is they don’t end, but at this point that’s preferable to the show. And at least the first three seasons are close enough to the book plots that you could watch them afterward as a faithful adaptation, whereas the latter seasons start taking too many liberties that either don’t make sense given previous character development, or are clearly done to increase shock value and get people talking about the latest episode.
When Piers Morgan starts to sound reasonable we’re truly fucked.