I’m big into watching great television series, but it wasn’t until Sunday night that I had finally seen the critically acclaimed Game of Thrones. The season three premiere had its biggest audience with an average of 4.4 million viewers, according to TechCrunch.
I’m aware that I’m fairly late to the game, as it was the most pirated show of 2012, according to TechCrunch. The show is, to me, a mixture of Lord of the Rings and House of Cards — family drama with backstabbing, secrets and a little bit of incest, all in a medieval setting with magic involved.
The show is hard to turn away from once you understand who the characters are and what drives them. There are multiple plots in play at all times, keeping you on the edge of your seat.
The season premiere had more than 163,000 people sharing a single BitTorrent file to download the episode, which is a new record, according to CNN.
“I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but it is a compliment of sorts,” said HBO programming president Michael Lombardo to Entertainment Weekly. “The demand is there. And it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales. (Piracy is) something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network.”
HBO also recently approved a fourth season. The show also brings in about $55 million per season.
It’s easy to see why, too. After having never seen a single episode, I started watching the series in the middle of season two. Five hours and five episodes later, I was hooked.
The HBO series is based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. There is some concern, however, that the television series will catch up to the novels before Martin has a chance to finish the last novel, which will be book number seven.
Season three is based on the first half of the third book in the series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The first five novels of the series have been completed since the first one was released in 1996. With several years in between each novel, there might be either a lag in the HBO series or possibly the release of the series on HBO before the book saga is completed, something Martin hopes doesn’t happen.
“I’m just hoping the series will finish. I know the books will finish,” Martin told Hollywood Reporter.
Whether or not there is a lag, there will most likely always be a demand for the thrilling series.
Jessica Ensley is a sophomore studying journalism at Ohio University and a columnist for The Post. Are you watching Game of Thrones? Email Jessica at je726810@ohiou.edu.
