Upcoming 2022 TV shows - trying to be "the next Game of Thrones"

[The Dragon Demands]

This is a list I've been making trying to assess "genre" shows trying to be "the next Game of Thrones" - a question that kept going around in late 2019. Not just limited to science fiction and fantasy, but "popular binge-worthy TV" in general. Things that could COMPETE with House of the Dragon, the type of thing that, for example, YouTube channels following Game of Thrones have switched to covering during the Interregnum (i.e. The Witcher, Wheel of Time, etc.)

Please suggest any updates you have on what might be 'Shows to look out for in 2022", and I'll update the list.

I break it down by what I call "clade" - by which streaming service they're on, by extension what media corporation owns them; these days not many major shows air on broadcast networks anyway, but for example, "ABC" is owned by Disney thus if there was another Lost-scale show on ABC it would go under "Disney+" (I count Hulu as a subdivision of Disney+ ever since they got bought out).  After Round 1 of the Streamer Wars, there are SEVEN major streaming platforms: Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Warner-Discover's "HBO Max", and then to a lesser extent NBC's "Peacock", CBS's "Paramount+", and Apple TV+.  After that you've got a handful of smaller outliers: AMC comes to mind, though these aren't the glory days of Breaking Bad/Mad Men/early Walking Dead (one of the reasons HBO greenlit GoT in 2008 is because AMC was humiliating them with a slate of "new classics" that everyone assumed would be on HBO, and they needed a hit fast).  Also doesn't include crossover British TV like Doctor Who or Peaky Blinders, etc. - these are outside the seven major clades and I list them as “other”. 

IMDb's Most Anticipated Shows of 2022

"Most Anticipated Shows of 2022" can be subjective by critic, but last week before Christmas IMDb put out two lists of most anticipated shows based on SITE TRAFFIC to specific pages - which seems a little more informative. The two lists are for "new series" and "returning series":

IMDb's Most Anticipated New Shows of 2022:

• 1 - House of the Dragon (HBO Max)
• 2 - Lord of the Rings Second Age Prequel (Amazon)
• 3 - Pam + Tommy (Hulu) (actually a one-shot miniseries)
• 4 - The Sandman (Netflix)
• 5 - The Last of Us (HBO Max)
• 6 - Obi-wan Kenobi (Disney+)
• 7 - She-Hulk (Disney+)
• 8 - Ms. Marvel (Disney+)
• 9 - Peacemaker (HBO Max) (first DC Comics TV show)
• 10 - Moon Knight (Disney+)

Boba Fett wasn't included due to the quirk of airing on December 28, but I sort of see it as an extension of "The Mandalorian"...leading us into the list of top ten returning shows:

IMDb's Most Anticipated Returning Shows of 2022:

• 1 - Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)
• 2 - Bridgerton (Netflix)
• 3 - American Horror Story (FX)
• 4 - Peaky Blinders final season (BBC America)
• 5 - The Mandalorian (Disney+)
• 6 - Shadow & Bone (Netflix)
• 7 - Stranger Things (Netflix)
• 8 - Rick & Morty (Adult Swim/HBO Max)
• 9 - The Crown (Netflix)
• 10 - The Boys (Amazon)

So I'm cross-referencing that with my pre-existing list going by the seven "clades" in the Streaming Wars:

Disney+

• Marvel shows (collectively) - She-hulk, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, Loki Season 2, etc.
• Star Wars shows (collectively) - Mandalorian, Boba Fett, Obi-wan Kenobi, Andor, etc.
• Willow TV series - might not be very anticipated, but another Fantasy genre show

Pam & Tommy is a one-shot miniseries, would not compete with HotD at Emmys, and while Handmaid's Tale might only have one final season in it on Hulu, starting February 2. The awards shows do like it - but it won't have another season until after 2022

Similarly, I'm greatly looking forward to The Dropout, premiering on Hulu on March 3, about the Elizabeth Holmes Theranos scandal.

HBO Max

• House of the Dragon - TBA
• The Last of Us (video game adaptation)
• The Gilded Age (successor to "Downton Abbey") - January 24
• Peacemaker (first DC Comics TV show) - January 13
• Euphoria Season 2 (January 9) - very popular with the kids these days
• Raised by Wolves season 2 (8 episodes starting February 3) - a hot mess mixing a bunch of leftover Ridley Scott ideas. Utterly insane, people can't stop watching.
• Westworld Season 4 (Late 2022) - this show is winding down and did not live up to the hype generated by Season 1, but people will watch it end

The "Dune: The Sisterhood" TV series is coming, but probably after 2022. They just hired a new showrunner in July, and I suspect it was only the recent success of the movie which gave the project a shot in the arm. If we haven't even heard casting yet it's not coming in 2022.

JJ Abrams' next huge project "Demimonde", which he's been working on since 2018.  On the one hand, he's a big producer and been working on it for a long time...on the other hand, it might simply be in Development Hell. So is it taking so long because it's going to be huge, or because it's falling apart? Either way with no casting news, it's not coming in 2022. 

Also honorable mention to the third and final season of His Dark Materials, coming out in late 2022.

Netflix

• The Witcher - Season 2 JUST dropped, and it's fairly popular, but not quite Game of Thrones levels - it's not GROWING in popularity since Season 1, the way Game of Thrones got bigger every year
• The Witcher: Blood Origin - prequel series due out at some point in 2022
• The Sandman - adaptation of Neil Gaiman's groundbreaking comic book series
• The Crown - perennial awards favorite, and a good historical drama (but not a "genre" thing with fan merchandise and so forth, this is an awards scale thing). Season 5 coming in November 2022.
• Bridgerton - the crowds enjoy it for all the historical romance and sex stuff, quite popular
• Stranger Things (Summer) - scifi, very popular, but winding down in the next season or two
• Shadow + Bone - fantasy adaptation, but I haven't heard much chatter about it. I am openly surprised that it ranked #6 on IMDb's list of the top ten most anticipated returning shows of 2022 based on website traffic.
• Last Airbender (TBA) - live-action adaptation of the groundbreaking fantasy animated series, probably going to premiere in November/December 2022. If it's done WELL it could indeed be "the next Game of Thrones" (the cartoon series on its own was so popular and had so much mythos that it was arguably the same level of popularity, at least among the scifi/fantasy crowd, and deservedly so). Or it could be a complete flop like the previous movie attempt at an adaptation (an infamous mega-flop). Either way, people will be scrutinizing the first season as it comes out for its "new-ness" (if it's bad, people will still talk about it, and only stop talking about season two when it happens).
• Vikings: Valhalla (February 25)
• Ozark (January 21) - fourth and final season, divided in two halves, first of which premieres in January 2021. More of an awards rival.
• 1899 - from the creators of "Dark"
• Wednesday - Tim Burton live-action Addams Family series. Could be a flop, could be interesting.

Amazon Prime Video

• Lord of the Rings Second Age Prequel (September 2) has the potential to be good or a complete flop, we don't know. Don't assume it will be good (we're uneasy about behind the scenes staff things on it). But like Last Airbender...either way, people will be talking a lot about the first season, and if it's bad they'll only start ignoring it by season two.
• The Wheel of Time - JUST finished Season 1, put on this list as a legacy. For both this and The Witcher, people will binge over Christmas break into January, and follow production news. I haven't been following it - people seem attracted to it because it's new, but I've seen reviews that are more mixed than The Witcher Season 1 (which was fairly popular).  I realize book readers are annoyed at stuff they condensed or changed to try to be cool, but it's at least getting a second season so maybe that'll improve (shrug) you never know. But this list is about CHATTER, what people are talking about, regardless of whether book readers think it's good, it's still "the competition".
• The Boys - scathing socio-political commentary, very good parody of superheroes.
• Carnival Row - never really took off in its first season, which is a shame because I liked the visual aesthetic and worldbuilding. Hit hard by the pandemic delaying its second season. But then again Breaking Bad got delayed by a writers' strike in season two, so you never know. A point going for it is that I've seen TV commercials for Wheel of Time actively promoting it for the Fantasy crowd: commercials saying "If you came because you like Wheel of Time, stay to enjoy our other Fantasy shows like Carnival Row".  So maybe that will give it a shot in the arm.
• Good Omens - Season 2 (from Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett)

And now, the sideshows....

Paramount+

• Star Trek franchise (collectively; Discovery, Picard, cartoons) - not really "competition" for House of the Dragon because it's very different, Scifi vs Fantasy; consistently gets good ratings but not breakout mega-hits
• Halo TV series - trailer just came out, MASSIVE video game series with huge built-in fanbase. Whether season one is good or not, people will watch it to check it out. They INTEND to air in 2022, but apparently late 2022. We'll see what happens. 

Peacock

• Wildcards TV show? (probably not in 2022)
• Potential Battlestar Galactica reboot (probably not in 2022)

Apple TV+

• Foundation - poorly received for basically being fanfic expanding on Prelude to Foundation. Second season might get better if it does a time skip and goes back to the books. I sympathize with David Goyer, from all his interviews it's clear that Apple would NEVER have made a straight-up adaptation of the books, he made the best one he could, but had to make too many compromises: in interviews he keeps stressing "it takes place across centuries and has time skips in it" but season one wasn't like that at all. I've seen many TV critics listing it as one of the big flops of 2022. Highly anticipated, after the "new-ness" of season one wears off, I don't think people will pay attention to Season 2 if it's just more of the same. Which is a shame. I was fired up to see Bel Riose...
• See - returning for Season 2. Actually a pretty well-received post-apocalyptic scifi show, but it's very niche due to being on small-scale Apple TV+. I hope it keeps going, but it's kind of a fringe show.
• For All Mankind - actually well received by critics, much like "See" it hasn't gained widespread notice. I hope it does well for the cast, even though I loathe Ron D. Moore. 
• Ted Lasso - technically a comedy show and thus not competing against House of the Dragon

"Other"

• Better Call Saul (AMC) - the final season (split in half, across two years?)
• The Last Kingdom - the final season (BBCA) (February 27)
• Outlander season 6 (Starz) (March 6)
• Killing Eve - the final season (BBCA/AMC)
• The Walking Dead - the final season (AMC) (other spinoffs will keep franchise alive, but it's not what it once was - though they had a good run)
• Interview with the Vampire: the TV series (AMC) - starring Game of Thrones' Jacob Anderson. Sad that Anne Rice did not live to see this. Quite a fanbase for the vampire romance/drama franchise.
• The First Lady (Showtime) - star-studded awards bait, following three US First Ladies: Viola Davis as Michelle Obama, Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford, and Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Rosevelt. Not very anticipated, but potential awards rival.
• A Discovery of Witches - third and final season (Sky One) (January 7)

Animated projects

Not directly "competing" with House of the Dragon, but of honorable mention among animation fandom:

• Rick & Morty (Adult Swim/HBO Max)
• Harley Quinn season 3 (HBO Max)
• The Owl House / Amphibia final seasons & potential crossover (DisneyXD/Disney+)
• Invincible season 2 (Amazon)

I'll update this list as we proceed, please suggest any other updates and I'll put them in.

[Annara Snow]

Trying to be the next Game of Thrones

They want to become really huge and popular and critically acclaimed and then turn into a massive disappointment and piss off everyone?

Anyway, my most anticipated shows are:

1899 (the new show of the Dark showrunners, Jantje Friese and Baran Bo Odar, which will be a multi-lingual period drama/supernatural (?) thriller/horror (?_ with an international cast - each playing their own natonality. This one is clearly not trying to be a new GoT, but a new Dark.

Midnight Club - Mike Flanagan's new show. Should be the new The Haunting of Hill House/The Haunting of Bly Manor/Midnight Mass. There is also his other show, The Fall of the House of Usher, but that one may not be releaserd in 2022.

I also do look forward to The Sandman and The Lord of the Rings.

For returning shows, I'm in looking forward to season 3 of Kingdom.

[The Dragon Demands]

Thanks, I hadn’t heard of these.

oh, I also forgot “The Last Kingdom” because it’s next season will also be its last.

[Annara Snow]

1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Thanks, I hadn’t heard of these.

oh, I also forgot “The Last Kingdom” because it’s next season will also be its last.

I'm sometimes confused  by what or what isn't considered a so-called "genre" show. The Last Kingdom is just historical fiction with really no fantasy elements. It does have action/battles, so does that count?

The Korean drama Kingdom, on the other hand, is a period action drama with zombies, so definitely in the supernatural/horror/fantasy field. It's also, out of the shows often compared to GoT, a rare one where the comparison does make a lot of sense.

From what I've seen in places like Twitter or the SpoilerTV website etc., The Wheel of Time has been really popular - in spite of the book readers' complaints. It's definitely one of the most talked about shows (at least as much as The Witcher was when it first came out), aside from Squid Game and the (really overhyped) Marvel and Star Wars shows.

Shadow and Bone is very popular and talked about on Twitter and Tumblr (to the point I got sick of seeing tweets about it), but a lot of the talk is about ships and in particular, one annoying ship war. The fandom is more similar to a CW-show fandom (and the books are often seen as YA, so that isn't so surprising). However, it also got really good reviews when it came out, which surprises me as I didn't find it to be all that good. But a lot of the praise is "they improved the books"... however, to me that seems more like "these problems seem to have been even worse in the books". For instance, everyone is happy that season 1 combined two different books and two different sets of characters - as most people agree that the Crows are more interesting as characters (which I agree with), while the superpowered/Chosen One heroine is pretty bland and her romances dull - but everyone who has read the books says that she is much blander and more passive and boring in the books, and that the show has improved her and her love interests.

So, this seems like a case of shows being praised for improving on bad books they are adapting, while shows based on better books get slammed for any changes they make. Which I can't judge as I haven't read WoT or Foundation, but it makes me a  bit bitter, as GoT somehow managed to escape criticism for 7.5 seasons, even though it was a terrible adaptation of ASOAIF and a really messy and often terribly written show in itself, for at least half of its run (and that's me being generous - there were so many things in season 2-4 that I have issues with, even some in season 1). A part of me is even wondering, seeing some of the WoT criticisms about the changes they've made ("How dare they center this female character more? How dare they make the stoic fighting man more emotional? How dare they make all the characters participate in a  battle rather than have the main white male do everything by himself?"), if this is not exactly because D&D's changes were very much a fratboy interpretation of GoT and did exactly the opposite things (like priotiizing male perspectives and sidelining female characters unless they could be made into seductresses or women who fight with swords, making queer characters into stereotypes, making male characters and "badass" female characters less emotional, etc.).

On the other hand, the House of the Dragon really hasn't been talked about that much - people have been really lukewarm about everything GoT-related.

The irony with Foundation is that it's the parts of season 1 that were almost completely made up for the show - everything with the genetic dynasty - that has met the most positive response (partly due to how much people were happy to see Lee Pace as the Emperor of the Galaxy, but in general, that storyline had the best acting and writing, while the rest of season 1 was so-so).

[Zorral]

WoT fizzled out, badly.  Badly. They won't be able to fix it, since what nonbookers cannot follow permeates the rest of the source material too. We waited to learn what was what, but there is just Too Much -- too many characters, peoples, etc. to shove them all into an 8 ep series.  The thing is though, that unless bookers have permeated themselves in the series for years, evidently since childhood, they don't know what's going on in the books either.  The trouble is rooted in the source material. What a waste of Rosamond Pike.  This kind of mess is shared with The Witcher, but because of monster of the episode, and we seem anchored, so far, at least by one of the recurring characters, it doesn't seem to bother as much, so far.  Also, less expensive. 

The Nevers will bring its second part to HBO in 2022.  

Season 3 of Discovery of Witches is in two weeks on Sundance.  

[IFR]

@Annara Snow

You are certainly welcome to your opinions, but I think you are making a strawman out of those with whom you disagree.

Of recent adaptations, I found Foundation and Wheel of Time to be abysmal. It's like the writers had no consideration for the source material, and just wanted to put in their own greatly inferior original material. The Witcher is much the same way, but the original material is actual merely subpar, not outright disastrous. I haven't read the source material for Shadow and Bone, but I found the show to be a deeply unimpressive, extremely generic and fairly mindless show.

Not a TV show,, but I loved Dune.

I thought Game of Thrones was terrific up to season 6. Even season 6-7 provided enough high points that it became a fun, mindless show. 8 was really bad though. 

I guess if you want to accuse me of being a self-hating woman or whatever narrative in order to justify this difference of opinion, you're welcome to it.

Your comment did make me laugh because I was coincidentally reading this thread on reddit, on a subreddit dedicated to the Wheel of Time, on whether WoT or GoT was a better adaptation.

Reddit thread.

--

Anyway, I don't think the next Game of Thrones is going to be a fantasy. That genre is way too difficult to get right. It too often comes off as silly.

[Annara Snow]

15 minutes ago, IFR said:

@Annara Snow

You are certainly welcome to your opinions, but I think you are making a strawman out of those with whom you disagree.

Of recent adaptations, I found Foundation and Wheel of Time to be abysmal. It's like the writers had no consideration for the source material, and just wanted to put in their own greatly inferior original material. The Witcher is much the same way, but the original material is actual merely subpar, not outright disastrous. I haven't read the source material for Shadow and Bone, but I found the show to be a deeply unimpressive, extremely generic and fairly mindless show.

Not a TV show,, but I loved Dune.

I thought Game of Thrones was terrific up to season 6. Even season 6-7 provided enough high points that it became a fun, mindless show. 8 was really bad though. 

I guess if you want to accuse me of being a self-hating woman or whatever narrative in order to justify this difference of opinion, you're welcome to it.

Your comment did make me laugh because I was coincidentally reading this thread on reddit, on a subreddit dedicated to the Wheel of Time, on whether WoT or GoT was a better adaptation.

Reddit thread.

--

Anyway, I don't think the next Game of Thrones is going to be a fantasy. That genre is way too difficult to get right. It too often comes off as silly.

Season 5 of GoT was an absolute disaster, with some of the most illogical plots in the history of TV (Sansa Marriage Strike! Satannis and his Very Bad Day, everything with Dorne... Dorne was so hilariously bad it was almost like watching an SNL parody of the show. And then there's even smaller things like Tyrion being such a Nice Guy that a sex slave (!) offers him free sex (?!)...

and seasons 2-4, and even season 1, also had a lot of crap, from so many pointless brothel scenes inserted just to get some female nudity in the show, including idiotic subplots as Podrick and his magic D, to sidelining every female character who couldn't be made to take her clothes off and be a seductress or fight with swords (GRRM: "I wrote Catelyn Stark because I wanted to show the perspective of the King's mother, of a woman like Eleanor of Aquitaine"... D&D: "Nah, boring, let's just do the usual thing"), to all the Nice Guy narratives (why not make Sansa's forced marriage into a story about what a Nice Guy Tyrion is? A lot of book readers always wanted it to be that, after all! Also, whitewash Jorah as much as possible and make the audience feel for him for being such a "friendzoned" Nice guy), completely ignoring themes such as the suffering of small folk in the war, , or what it means to be a true knight, to changing characterizations into something D&D found it easier to understand (Arya is the Cool Girl who chats with Grandpa Tywin and thinks most girls are stupid! Loras is a an ananchronistic gay stereotype! the Hound must not ever cry, because badass men don't cry!...), not to mention stripping away most of the magic in the show, because "we want to appeal to football players and soccer moms" (...don't get me started on that comment) - but I was still willing to forgive it because I really wanted to like the show.

In retrospect, I wonder why GoT escaped criticism by the majority of the public and even got defended by many book readers after season 4? And I can't help thinking it is because it was a shallow grimdark fratboy interpretation of ASOAIF, and let's face it, a lot of the audience loves shallow grimdark fratboy stuff and interpreted ASOAIF in the exact same way. So, if you provide some evidence that people on Reddit think GoT was always a fantastic and faithful adaptation of ASOAIF, I will not be surprised at all.

[The Dragon Demands]

Well Zorral...we'll have to see if Season 2 can improve for Wheel of Time. I'm not in a position to judge it relative to the books (greater minds will handle that) but the real measure is if the non-book readers keep talking about it. 

Just...observationally...I'm not noticing nearly as much of a "pop culture impact" by Wheel of Time as I did for Witcher Season 1 when it came out. People DO review it, but I'm not seeing as much raving about it. 

We can't know how well Season 2 will be received. But it's certainly on the back foot. Season 1 wasn't a breakout hit. But hey, even Breaking Bad took two seasons to really gain "hype" status.

[The Dragon Demands]

5 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Season 5 of GoT was an absolute disaster, with some of the most illogical plots in the history of TV (Sansa Marriage Strike! Satannis and his Very Bad Day, everything with Dorne... Dorne was so hilariously bad it was almost like watching an SNL parody of the show. And then there's even smaller things like Tyrion being such a Nice Guy that a sex slave (!) offers him free sex (?!)...

Yeah.... after the money spent on the spectacle of the Battle of the Bastards at the end of Season 6, a lot of casual viewers...kinda forgot about the invented Sansa rape. Or butchering Dorne. Compartmentalization and denial, and they only have themselves to blame.

Oh it wasn't them trying to be grimdark; it was all celebrity culture. They stunningly admit in their own commentaries "we're just showing off the actors".   Then viewers just...projected onto this nonsense, any meaning they wanted.

The group I blame the most for all this is the...entertainment reporting crowd. THEY are the ones who got over-hyped reporting on celebrity actors, celebrity showrunners.

And tying this all together...the darndest thing is, most major pop-culture TV "reviewers" are utterly dismissive of House of the Dragon, because of the failure of D&D on Game of Thrones....in a drastic disconnect with the objective numbers we're getting from IMDb, where it's the most read-about new TV show coming in 2022. 

I mean the numbers are there, this isn't just my interpretation. Large numbers of people are actually quite interested in House of the Dragon - Season 1 at least. NO ONE was reporting on this as filming news came out, but when the first teaser trailer hit on October 5....there was a gigantic wave of reaction videos by major YouTube TV review channels that had never heard a single thing about it before....and most thought it looked intriguing. The type of trailer reaction we normally only see for a major movie like "Dune".  

In short the problem is that we don't have objective, detached reporters....the reporters themselves were fanboys (and fangirls). And it's bizarre seeing BOTH SIDES of what results from that: up through  the final season they're in denial that it's getting worse, because they're fans. AFTER it was that bad....like pouting fanboys, they refuse to you know...."report"...on a major TV franchise? Since when do they get to pick and choose what to report on? doesn't their editor assign it or something?

[Annara Snow]

Just now, The Dragon Demands said:

 

But we're here to talk about other shows...

Sorry.

I have to try to stop ranting about GoT when talking about other show. But realistically, I'll probably do it around the same time when the media stop comparing every new show to GoT.

[IFR]

9 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Season 5 of GoT was an absolute disaster, with some of the most illogical plots in the history of TV (Sansa Marriage Strike! Satannis and his Very Bad Day, everything with Dorne... Dorne was so hilariously bad it was almost like watching an SNL parody of the show. And then there's even smaller things like Tyrion being such a Nice Guy that a sex slave (!) offers him free sex (?!)...

and seasons 2-4, and even season 1, also had a lot of crap, from so many pointless brothel scenes inserted just to get some female nudity in the show, including idiotic subplots as Podrick and his magic D, to sidelining every female character who couldn't be made to take her clothes off and be a seductress or fight with swords (GRRM: "I wrote Catelyn Stark because I wanted to show the perspective of the King's mother, of a woman like Eleanor of Aquitaine"... D&D: "Nah, boring, let's just do the usual thing"), to all the Nice Guy narratives (why not make Sansa's forced marriage into a story about what a Nice Guy Tyrion is? A lot of book readers always wanted it to be that, after all! Also, whitewash Jorah as much as possible and make the audience feel for him for being such a "friendzoned" Nice guy), completely ignoring themes such as the suffering of small folk in the war, , or what it means to be a true knight, to changing characterizations into something D&D found it easier to understand (Arya is the Cool Girl who chats with Grandpa Tywin and thinks most girls are stupid! Loras is a an ananchronistic gay stereotype! the Hound must not ever cry, because badass men don't cry!...), not to mention stripping away most of the magic in the show, because "we want to appeal to football players and soccer moms" (...don't get me started on that comment) - but I was still willing to forgive it because I really wanted to like the show.

In retrospect, I wonder why GoT escaped criticism by the majority of the public and even got defended by many book readers after season 4? And I can't help thinking it is because it was a shallow grimdark fratboy interpretation of ASOAIF, and let's face it, a lot of the audience loves shallow grimdark fratboy stuff and interpreted ASOAIF in the exact same way. So, if you provide some evidence that people on Reddit think GoT was always a fantastic and faithful adaptation of ASOAIF, I will not be surprised at all.

Or maybe GoT had complexity and good writing in the view others, even if you do not see it.

I mean, people like Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren (among many, many other politicians, academics, et al) were fans. Do you think they're mindless drones incapable of identifying sophisticated plotting and good storytelling? 

At any rate, one of my criticisms of Wheel of Time show was that it was violating the tone of the books and inadroitly trying to be too grim. It didn't work at all for that particular show. It needed to be lighter, and have the charm and humor of the books. Brandon Sanderson, among others, also made this criticism. 

So make of that what you will, I suppose. 

[The Dragon Demands]

7 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Shadow and Bone is very popular and talked about on Twitter and Tumblr (to the point I got sick of seeing tweets about it), but a lot of the talk is about ships and in particular, one annoying ship war. The fandom is more similar to a CW-show fandom (and the books are often seen as YA, so that isn't so surprising).

(shrug) there's something to be said for a basic idea, but executed well.

I love the old analogy of "a well-prepared fast food hamburger can actually be better than a badly prepared steak at a restaurant". 

I mean "Twilight" wasn't high art, but it was what it was trying to be - young adult vampire romance. It achieved what it set out to do. Same with the sprawling "Vampire Diaries" franchise on CW including its spinoffs. 

[Annara Snow]

3 minutes ago, IFR said:

Or maybe GoT had complexity and good writing in the view others, even if you do not see it.

I mean, people like Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren (among many, many other politicians, academics, et al) were fans. Do you think they're mindless drones incapable of identifying sophisticated plotting and good storytelling? 

At any rate, one of my criticisms of Wheel of Time show was that it was violating the tone of the books and inadroitly trying to be too grim. It didn't work at all for that particular show. It needed to be lighter, and have the charm and humor of the books. Brandon Sanderson, among others, also made this criticism. 

So make of that what you will, I suppose. 

Are you seriously using "politicians liked this show, this means it was top quality" as an argument I'm supposed to find compelling? 

[The Dragon Demands]

4 minutes ago, IFR said:

Or maybe GoT had complexity and good writing in the view others, even if you do not see it.

(genuine laughter)...aren't you the guy who just said three posts ago that Seasons 6 to 7 were "mindless fun" but not good writing?

 

Quote

I thought Game of Thrones was terrific up to season 6. Even season 6-7 provided enough high points that it became a fun, mindless show. 8 was really bad though. 

Let's...let's just ignore this guy Annara, he's derailing the thread off-topic. Meant to be about TV shows in general (or at most, House of the Dragon's upcoming performance relative to other shows and audience interest). 

[The Dragon Demands]

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

The Nevers will bring its second part to HBO in 2022.  

Well...the Nevers Season 1 finale was very interesting - Claudia Black's presence alone makes any show great for me (Scaper 4 Life) - but with all the chaos behind the scenes, who knows what will happen to it.

[The Dragon Demands]

Oh, I forgot about Killing Eve's final season, adding back now....

[IFR]

3 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

Are you seriously using "politicians liked this show, this means it was top quality" as an argument I'm supposed to find compelling? 

You are allowed to find whatever you want as compelling. I noticed your confusion about why these other series were not achieving popularity, and why they are subjected to criticisms where GoT was not.

I provided an explanation that your conclusion was an inaccurate representation of why someone would like GoT and not those shows, from someone who holds that stance (yours truly). I also provided a link to hundreds of concurring opinions, many of them expressing in detail their stance.

You then went into a long post expressing your opinion why you personally thought GoT was not a good show or had satisfying complexity. I disagreed and noted examples of other people who happen to be very intelligent and disagree with you.

(As an aside, the show also won more Emmys than any other Prime Time show, was scoring rave reviews from critics until the sixth season, and had nearly universal acclaim up to that point. It also is rated a one of the top 20 shows on imdb, even after the disastrous final season.)

Now if you want to go ahead and believe that the only explanation for people liking GoT and not liking a show such as WoT is because they must be a sexist idiot...have at it.

I'm merely providing an alternative explanation, take it or leave it.

3 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

genuine laughter)...aren't you the guy who just said three posts ago that Seasons 6 to 7 were "mindless fun" but not good writing?

I suggest you not presuppose someone's gender. I'm not personally offended at being misidentified, but it's good decorum to not make that assumption.

And yes, I did make that statement. It's a common sentiment. The first five seasons were excellent. After that, the show depreciated in quality, but still had entertaining high points. 

Anyway, to the main topic - as I said earlier, I don't think any of the shows listed will come near to GoT in popularity or acclaim. Because once again, fantasy is hard to pull off.

I think it will be a Korean drama, actually. Those seem to be building in their potential.

[Annara Snow]

@IFR No, actually WoT seems to have achieved huge popularity, as has The Witcher. It's obviously you who are confused here. I guess you really want to believe GoT is a snowflake and that all other fantasy shows are unsuccessful...

LOL at another round of a show defender not being able to provide any actual counterarguments and prove the show's quality but instead resorting to external validation like "Politicians liked it! It got a ton of Emmys - for its worst seasons!" Yes, I know Emmys are a joke, you don't have to remind me. I'm sure you really think GoT is the bestest show, and so are The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family and The Practice, whereas The Wire, The Americans and The Leftovers suck. And that Braveheart, Crash and The Green Book are masterpieces of filmmaking.

[Annara Snow]

39 minutes ago, IFR said:

 

Anyway, to the main topic - as I said earlier, I don't think any of the shows listed will come near to GoT in popularity or acclaim. Because once again, fantasy is hard to pull off.

I think it will be a Korean drama, actually. Those seem to be building in their potential.

Yes, several Korean dramas have been successful recently. I'm not sure though why you seem to think that "Korean drama" is a genre, or that it is intrinsically the opposite of/cannot be fantasy. 

Squid Game is a thriller, Hellbound is contenporary dark fantasy/supernatural horror drama, Kingdom is a period drama/action/horror, there's also Sisyphus: the Myth- SciFi.. There's no reason why there couldn't be a Korean high fantasy show too.

Anyway, high fantasy doesn't seem so hard to pull off in the mainstream. The Lord of the Rings did it a decade before GoT. The Witcher and The Wheel of Time are doing it now. I commented on the fact that the *book readers" are slamming WoT and compared it to how long ASOIAF readers were ready to support GoT (and apparently quite a few still do here), no matter how much it was distorting the source material, which is a curious phenomenon..and you decided to misinterpret that as me talking about the (non-existent) "unpopularity"/"failure" of WoT. Well, sorry if I managed to unintentionally misinform you (?).

[The Dragon Demands]

Squid Game did get surprising mainstream success with the US audience