26 shows similar to Game of Thrones to watch next

2. His Dark Materials 

If you yearn for something a bit more fantastical, His Dark Materials has you covered. This adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s book series, which begins with The Golden Compass, marks HBO’s first return to the fantasy genre since Game of Thrones ended. It’s being developed as a joint project between the BBC and HBO, and thus far seems as though it will be the first time this amazingly influential book series is actually going to get the treatment it deserves. His Dark Materials has two seasons out thus far, with a third and final season slated for release in 2022.

The story follows Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen), a precocious girl who grew up at Oxford College in a fantasy world not totally unlike our own…except it’s filled with flying zeppelins, talking warrior polar bears, witches, and honorable bands of river-gypsies. Oh, and everyone has a daemon, an animal companion that is basically a physical manifestation of their soul.

There’s more to this show than that, oh so much more…but we wouldn’t want to delve too deep into spoilers. Suffice it to say that His Dark Materials does some really fun stuff with the concept of alternate realities and that the daemons, as representations of their human counterparts’ deepest emotional truths, are utterly fascinating.

His Dark Materials is often held up as a counterpoint to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, in part because it offers a scathing view of organized religion; the church of Lyra’s world is one of the main antagonists. The suppression of information is one of the church’s main weapons, and Lyra — a young girl who must know the answer to every question on her mind — is perfectly suited to push back. Layers of mystery are constantly peeled away as Lyra and her companions discover ever deeper truths about their world…and others.

There’s a fair amount of prophecy and “chosen one” ideas floating around this series, so if that’s a trope you’re tired of, alas, you will not get a break from it here. But for every familiar idea that His Dark Materials tackles, it also has a slew of fresh ones that have rarely been tackled so adeptly or originally in a fantasy story. Really, it should be a shoe-in for any fantasy fan’s watch-list.

The first two seasons of His Dark Materials are available to stream on HBO Max.