Even now, six years after Game of Thrones aired its divisive final season, the series stands out as the greatest major pop-culture phenomenon in the history of genre television. Everyone and their mother were watching and discussing Arya, Sansa, Jon, Dany, and all the rest in their offices, classrooms, gyms, pubs, and schools. People wrote long articles about their expectations for the final seasons of the once-in-a-generation series. At its peak, its viewership was in the tens of millions and spanned the entire globe. To this day, Game of Thrones remains one of the most pirated TV shows ever, as avid fans tried to get around the need for an HBO subscription, or the limited availability of the world’s most engaging television show in their country or region.
In the years since, people have tried to predict what will be the next global phenomenon on par with Game of Thrones; streaming services and cable networks have expended abundant resources on the bet that they will own that sacred title. Series such as The Expanse, which transposes some of the political aspects of Game of Thrones to a sci-fi setting; and Stranger Things, which has perhaps come closer than any other genre TV series when it comes to matching the widespread popularity of Game of Thrones, have done their best.
Amazon took two shots at the belt with The Rings of Power and the recently (and wrongfully) canceled series The Wheel of Time, but neither show came close to the fame and popularity of Thrones. The most recent season of The Wheel of Time was exceptional, but mistakes earlier in the series curtailed its growth potential. The Rings of Power has the budget and aesthetics that recall Game of Thrones, but cannot recreate the lovable characters and tight plotlines that hooked viewers back in 2011. HBO’s own prequel to Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, has made a brave play but still has not managed to recreate the juggernaut success of its predecessor, even while the series is well liked and posts respectable viewership numbers.
The one question I never hear asked is what was Game of Thrones before Daenerys, Jon, Arya, Sansa, Robb, and Ned popped up on the screen? Which series broke viewership ceilings and found audiences beyond its genres? The answers are interesting, and maybe studio execs should pay more attention to them as they scroll aimlessly through lists of IP they’ve never heard of looking for the next big thing. In a show as big as Game of Thrones, there was always a lot going on, but I believe the key ingredients of its legacy can be boiled down to the following: a series that transcended its genre, became a cultural phenomenon, achieved critical acclaim, possessed an ensemble cast, morally grey characters, and a show that inspired large amounts of fan engagement. In this millennium, three series managed to check each of those boxes in the years before Thrones burst onto the scene:
Lost
J.J. Abrams' island-dwelling drama is the most easily recognizable forerunner to Game of Thrones. The ensemble cast of characters such as Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Jin, Sayid, Claire, Curly, and John Locke offered between them something that interested every audience member. For viewers like me, I was interested in what everyone was doing on their mysterious island paradise/hell. Much like Game of Thrones, Lost started off with a banger of a premiere, introducing us to dozens of characters at once while a grave mystery loomed in the background. From the moment you hear strange clicking sounds out of the jungle and Sawyer kills a polar bear in the tropics, you know that this isn’t your ordinary desert island story. Years later, the series premiere of Game of Thrones ended with Bran climbing up a tower, making a startling discovery, and then taking the express exit. From then on, the audience knew this wasn’t your average fantasy story.
In the years following its first season, Lost continued to build anticipation in its audience. Seasons 2 and 3 were very popular and further deepened and explored the island and those who dwelt happily or reluctantly on it. A Hollywood writers’ strike during the filming of season 4 led to an altered production schedule and a reduced number of episodes, but the series recovered and put up two expansive final seasons. (Side note: remember the days when a 14-episode season was considered short? We didn’t know how good we had it).
Unfortunately, comparisons to Game of Thrones were made retroactively the moment the Thrones finale aired. I personally didn’t mind the ending of Lost, but when it aired in 2011, it foreshadowed the even larger blowback that would come with the end of Game of Thrones in 2019. When shows have that much emotion riding on them, maybe they can never deliver.
Breaking Bad
Not a fantasy or sci-fi series but a neo-western about a high school teacher turned crime lord, Breaking Bad is still ranked as one of the best TV shows of all time. Airing from 2008 to 2013, Breaking Bad started just three years before Game of Thrones. Building on groundwork laid in shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad got audiences got used to the idea of antihero protagonists as well as sudden and unexpected violence on a scale rarely seen before. After rooting for Walter White, many of us didn’t know it yet, but we were ready to root for Jaime Lannister too.
Breaking Bad brought us more of the darkness and suspense that we would later love in Game of Thrones. There wasn't as much fan theorizing, but people were nonetheless hooked. The series achieved phenom status later on in its run after slowly building up its viewership numbers across the seasons. Eventually, its critical and popular acclaim was far reaching; to this day it is one of the highest rated series ever on IMDb, and unlike Thrones had a series finale that was very well-received.
Battlestar Galactica
Perhaps lost to time, Battlestar Galactica was the Game of Thrones of the early 2000s. Airing from 2004-2009, the series was a compact four seasons with a strong plotline from beginning to end. Battlestar Galactica was set in a mysterious science fiction universe where human survivors of a surprise attack on their home worlds must flee from a relentless and conniving enemy of their own creation: the robots called Cylons. As their fleet travels across the cosmos looking for a new place to settle, the ragtag human survivors must deal with every sort of problem, from lack of water to religious strife to the ever-present Cylons, whose technology is so advanced that their machine bodies are indistinguishable from those of humans, allowing them to blend in with and spy upon their prey.
Clocking in with a total of 76 episodes, Battlestar had more episodes in four seasons than Game of Thrones did in eight. Over its short run, the show built up a large cult following that has endured into the modern era. The series certainly transcended its genre, mixing political intrigue, mystery, adventure, and military-action to create a knockout cocktail. In a critical environment that usually heaps scorn on genre storytelling, Battlestar Galactica was nominated for Emmys after every season, foreshadowing Game of Thrones' dominance at the awards show in future years. Its large ensemble cast was top notch and left the viewers constantly afraid that their favorites wouldn’t survive the day, and indeed, many of the characters did not make it all the way to the finale. Well-acted, well-written, and well-planned from the start, Battlestar Galactica had both epic space battles and deeply personal vignettes that explored the lives of the characters.
None of these series ever reached the massive popularity and scope of Game of Thrones. Nothing really did before Thrones came along, and it is debatable that anything has since. I for one suspect if any series broke Game of Thrones' viewership records that whatever streaming service it was on would release the data, something streamers are usually loathe to do. However, these series were the forerunners of Game of Thrones' phenom status and had similar DNA in how their stories were written and structured. Maybe Hollywood can take the hint.
Breaking Bad and Lost are currently available to stream on Netlfix. Battlestar Galactica is available on Prime Video.
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