Game of Thrones is one hot genre show right now. Yes, it’s certainly nice to see that a fantasy series is growing through good old-fashioned word of mouth – proving to be a strong foundation that should continue to build for Thrones.
It’s also great to see that a fantasy series is growing through good old-fashioned word of mouth, and it’s proving to be a strong foundation that should continue to build for Thrones.
Even though it didn’t have huge ratings at first, HBO stuck with the show because it didn’t have to be the biggest thing on TV, as long as people kept subscribing to the network. Now HBO’s loyalty is translating into strong ratings, Emmys, and critical acclaim.
On the first night of the second season, HBO already committed the show for a third season, and Thrones hit a series high for its season finale, 4.2 million viewers tuning in, and nearly a million watching the repeat at 11:10 P.M. This put Thrones’s rating up 38% from the first season’s season finale.
As the L.A. Times tells us, “Overall, Game of Thrones has averaged 10.4 million viewers this season including regular broadcasts, video-on-demand and the network.” As Slate pointed out, it’s all about the subscriptions that keeps a show alive, not to mention Thrones has gotten strong critical notices, a bunch of Emmys, and it’s also cleaning up on DVD, where the first season sold 350,000 copies the first week.
There’s no reason to think things won’t grow even bigger for the Thrones empire for season three. As Perezhilton.com enthused, “It’s only a matter of time until we’re all begging HBO for a [Game of Thrones] movie!”
But there’s so much freedom these days in TV, and so much room to build long story arcs, it continues to prove there’s more exciting and innovative storytelling on TV these days than in feature films by a long shot.
As Gavin Polone told Vulture, “What makes Game of Thrones the best show on TV is the desire of the producers to surprise us. Most everything else on television is just too damn predictable in both plot and incident these days, so it is really special to see something on screen that doesn’t go the way that you think it will.”
Peter Dinklage (Tyrion) also pointed out to Rolling Stone that the fans who turn into Thrones don’t want black and white, easy to conclude situations.
“Star Wars or Lord of the Rings deal with great big Joseph Campbell-style myths,” Dinklage said. “Good and evil. Our show is so much more unclear. It’s sort of the antithesis of those things – things that aren’t black and white.”
