After the success of Game of Thrones, it was inevitable that studios and streamers would try and replicate it. But with TV the way it is, is that even possible?
Over a year ago, millions of fans from around the world tuned in for the final season of Game of Thrones, sitting with our eyes glued to the television every Sunday. When the end came, no matter our opinions, we all knew it was the last moments of something special.
The headlines drove it home. The Ringer called Game of Thrones “The Last Popular TV Show.” Vulture asked, “Is Game of Thrones the Last Show We’ll Watch Together?” Wired said “Game of Thrones Is the Last Great Show to Bring Us Together.” When the final credits rolled, a collective sadness washed over the pop culture sphere. Was this really the last TV show we would all enjoy together like this?
If content creators have their way, no. Almost immediately after the show ended, a new wave of headlines hit. IGN wrote about “8 Shows That Could Be the Next Game of Thrones,” Vanity Fair asked “What Will Be the Next Game of Thrones?” WinterIsComing.net found “20 new shows that could become the next Game of Thrones,” and so on.
But when people talk about the “next Game of Thrones,” what do they really mean? The general consensus is this: Every major television studio is hoping to create a show that will reach the mass appeal and record ratings of HBO’s mega-hit, all while driving conversation online. It doesn’t need to be an adaptation of a fantasy novel, but it does need to be popular on a massive scale, providing something so captivating audiences can’t help but watch together.
Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Game of Thrones premiered in 2011. That’s two years before Netflix premiered its first original series, before the proliferation of streaming services made the idea of tuning in to watch a new episode of TV at a certain time on a certain date feel archaic.
The content creators, TV channels and streamers alike, want event television. This doesn’t have to come in the form of high-end dramas. The highest-rated network shows of 2019 included NFL football games or reality series like The Masked Singer or The Bachelor. These weekly “events” generate a ton of buzz and spur conversation on social media.
But that’s not what the studios chasing the success of Game of Thrones are after. They want carefully crafted stories that can bring people together like this:
But this kind of widely shared cultural experience is exactly what so many in entertainment media have pronounced dead. And it’s not just the pundits. HBO programming chief Casey Bloys told Vulture that “The TV landscape has changed since that show aired, and it’s probably more of a challenge for any platform—network, basic cable—to get that big watercooler hit.” And he’s right.
A lot of it has to do with the proliferation of content across hundreds of channels and dozens of streaming services, with people’s attention fracturing millions of times over. “We’ve moved from three, four broadcast networks on to hundreds of cable channels on to single digital platforms that offer you a huge plethora of choices across its hundreds of millions of subscribers,” said Dan Cryan, digital media director for the research firm IHS Markit. In a market that splintered, the argument goes, how can any one show dominate attention like Game of Thrones did?
Indeed, streaming platforms have been multiplying like bunnies. In addition to members of the old guard like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, we now have new challengers in HBO Max, Apple TV+, Quibi, Peacock and Disney+, with each service offering a variety of original programming to bring in new subscribers. As Alison Herman of The Ringer put it, there’s “something for everyone even as there’s nothing for everyone.” Today, there are hundreds of options when it comes to finding your new favorite show, all of them playing to different audiences.
Finding the “next Game of Thrones” gets harder still when you consider the difficulties of the every-episode-at-once model used by services like Netflix. New episodes of Game of Thrones were released once a week, which allowed hype to build, and gave chances for podcasts, YouTube channels, and recap articles to spread it. You can tell your friends about a show you watched on Netflix or Amazon, but it’s all but impossible to watch it together, since everyone will find it at different times.
In this context, shows can’t build to a climax the way the best Game of Thrones seasons built to a climax: Ned Stark’s execution, the Red Wedding, Cersei exploding her enemies in the Sept of Baelor…they all meant something because we’d gotten there together. If every episode of a season of TV is dropped at once, we’re going at our own pace, and arriving at those moments in our own time. For a show to be enjoyed collectively by as many people as enjoyed Game of Thrones, the weekly model might be a requirement.
So it seems all but impossible for the television industry to capture our collective attention like HBO did with Game of Thrones, but that won’t stop networks and streaming platforms from chasing the dragon. There have been hits like Disney+’s The Mandalorian, Netflix’s The Witcher, and HBO’s Westworld, but nothing like Game of Thrones, at least not yet.
The rise of streaming technology made television easier to watch than ever, but we also found ourselves drifting into groups without the common denominator of basic cable. It will take a major achievement to bring us together again. But no matter how shows these studios put out there, whether they find “the next Game of Thrones isn’t up to them. It’s up to the viewers to decide when it’s again time to call the banners.
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h/t Vulture