Entertainment Weekly clears up rumors about when Game of Thrones season 8 will debut

Recently, Game of Thrones visual effects supervisor Joe Bauer opined that the final season of the show wouldn’t be eligible for Emmy consideration for another “two years,” meaning it would premiere in June of 2019 at the very earliest (the cutoff date for Emmy eligibility is May 31), meaning fans would have to wait until next summer to see the final six episodes. Cue the outcry.

But then, like Azor Ahai during the Long Night, one man emerged to give us hope. James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly, who has long had a direct line to the powers that be at Game of Thrones, plunged Lightbringer through the heart of the panic:

"GoT returns for its final six episodes that will air during the first half of 2019. There have been reports over the weekend claiming the show’s return has been “delayed” to mid-2019 making [it] not eligible for Emmys until 2020. Rest assured, “first half of 2019” means exactly that, and HBO expects the show will air all its episodes in time for the 2019 Emmy eligibility cut off."

HBO programming president Casey Bloys made the comment about “the first half of 2019” about a month back, and we’re glad to hear that he means it. If HBO wants season 8 to be eligible for the 2019 Emmys, the first episode will have to debut sometime in May at the very latest, and hopefully earlier. Under the Emmy rules, for a season of television to be eligible for Emmys in any given year, it has to air the bulk of its episodes before May 31. But not all the episodes have to air before the end of May; episodes that hang off the edge into June are grandfathered in. Thrones used this exception in season 5, when the final two episodes aired in the first two weeks of June. “Mother’s Mercy,” the season 5 finale, won two Emmy awards, for Outstanding Directing and Writing.

Game of Thrones season 8 has six episodes. So if HBO wants to air the bulk of them before the eligibility cutoff, it would have to air the season premiere on Sunday, May 5 at the latest. That would still leave two episodes to air in June, which would be grandfathered in under the rules. And if Hibberd is right, and all of them will air before the cutoff date, the latest HBO could air the premiere is April 21, Easter.

Waiting as long as possible could pay dividends: for one, it means the show will be fresher in people’s minds when it comes time to vote on Emmys; and for another, it will give the post-production team as much time as possible to work on what’s shaping up to be a very complex season of TV.

But in any case, we’re getting Game of Thrones season 8 a little earlier than we thought…we think.

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h/t GoldDerby