The existential dread of finding a new show to obsess over

Game of Thrones may very well be the last “destination television” show that will ever exist, unless streaming services move to a weekly episode model for their shows. But as good as shows like Stranger Things and The Handmaids Tale are, do you really think people would sit down in front of their TV at the same time on Sunday to watch each episode as it rolled out, like they did for Game of Thrones? Probably not.

Game of Thrones became popular because it had a little something for everyone. For nerds like me, it had rich lore complete with prophecies and history going back hundreds of years to obsess over. There was also sword-fighting and wanton boobery, and slow-marching political maneuvering, all of it done with a budget comparable to blockbuster movies. When it comes to TV, Game of Thrones was an anomaly, not the norm. On paper, nothing about it screamed “biggest show of the decade,” but here we are.

How long will it take for people like us to find a new show to obsess over, and where will it finally come from?

Maya Hawke, Joe Keery, Gaten Matarazzo – Stranger Things (2019). Photo Credit: Netflix

It’s not just us fans who have a huge hole to fill in our TV watching and pop culture-obsessed lives (shoutout to Daniel O’Brien, the patron saint of obsessive pop culture disorder). HBO has some big shoes to fill, and despite a cool futuristic Westworld trailer, that ain’t it, chief. Chernobyl was awesome but it’s already over. Will His Dark Materials actually fill the void left by Game of Thrones? I’m skeptical.

ABC went through a similar problem after Lost went off the air. The network tried to find similar shows to fill that void, most notably Flash Forward and V. Neither show came close to the success of Lost.

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But who has a harder search? HBO or fans? Despite how you felt about the final season of Game of Thrones, this show took up a lot of headspace. I don’t know how many hours of deep dive GoT content I’ve watched on YouTube in the past few years. Honestly, it’s probably an embarrassing amount.

In the wake of the show ending, my wife and I have struggled to find something new to watch that interests us. Usually, we watch a drama then jump to a comedy, and then back to a drama. But with the end of Thrones, coupled with the end of VEEP and the season finale of Barry, we’ve been set adrift on the ever-growing sea of quality content that deserves our attention but won’t get it. Sorry, Peaky Blinders, I hear good things but it probably isn’t going to happen. Instead, we’ve fallen back into the familiar as we work our way through NBC’s Community again.

The familiar is all we’re looking forward to now, but even shows we’re excited about won’t fill the void of Thrones in our day-to-day lives. Stranger Things is coming back in less than a month, but how much time will we REALLY spend talking about season 3? Rick and Morty is coming down the pipe, and while I have high hopes for an Evil Morty arc, there is still limited lore for the show.

Is this how rich people with cable AND HBO felt in the 2000’s when The Sopranos ended? HBO knows exactly when I’m talking about when it comes to replacing a juggernaut. When The Sopranos wrapped up in 2007, HBO launched a few dramas that didn’t quite land before finding True Blood, which found its niche pretty quickly. It wasn’t until 2010 with Boardwalk Empire that HBO again had an awards darling that also got good ratings. But even those ratings pale in comparison to The Sopranos or Game of Thrones, which started just a year later.

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I don’t know what the next show that will truly capture my attention the way Game of Thrones did will be, especially in the age of binge watching. Anyone who does know, though, will get paid a lot of money to get it on screen. HBO and Amazon think that the hunger for swords and magic will be filled by their upcoming projects, but that’s not what I’m missing. It’s hard to put into words what the missing ingredient is, but you know it when you have it. HBO had it with Game of Thrones, and other networks have had it in the past. Who will be the next to figure it out?

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Oh, and as a preemptive matter, I’m not going to even consider reading A Song of Ice and Fire until the last book is already finished, so don’t hit me that that.

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