We’ve survived the fight between the Mountain and the Viper, and (for now) the battle for control of the Wall, and this Sunday brings the grand finale to the fourth season of “Game Of Thrones.” In the four years since the show began, a curious thing happened—it became a phenomenon.
The show was the biggest gamble the pay-cable monster had ever taken, a hugely expensive take on a genre that had generally been seen as niche and uncool, with too many dragons to attract the chattering classes that had turned “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” into must-see television, and potentially too much blood and gore to become the mainstream blockbusters that “The Lord of the Rings” films had been.
And yet thanks to an outstanding cast, high production values, and perhaps most importantly, a truly remarkable job of adapting George R.R. Martin‘s books by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the show picked up stellar reviews and proved to be a hit right out of the gate. But that was just the beginning. Viewing figures have skyrocketed with every season, and it’s now not just HBO’s biggest ever original series (recently overtaking “The Sopranos”), but one of the biggest dramas on TV, something that would have been unthinkable in the days of network TV dominance.
With this coming Sunday’s season finale, we’re probably approaching the halfway point of the show, and as such, it seemed like a good point to sit down and take a look back at the road to “Game Of Thrones.” HBO had already established themselves as a brand name for quality TV, and so we’ve picked out ten of their shows that directly or indirectly proved to be forerunners to their biggest ever blockbuster. Take a look below, and let us know your favorites in the comments section.
“Tales From The Crypt” (7 Seasons, 1989-1997)
Not the very first original HBO drama (it followed British co-production “Philip Marlowe, Private Eye” and Jim Henson and Anthony Minghella‘s excellent anthology show “The Storyteller“), but the first seminal hit, albeit somewhat overshadowed now by what came after, “Tales From the Crypt” was an anthology series based on the classic EC Comics horror series (though most of the episodes were actually lifted from other EC titles like “Vault Of Horror” or “Crime SuspensStories“), with each episode narrated by eerie old-school horror host the Crypt Keeper (a puppet voiced by John Kassir, who became something of an icon). The show doesn’t have much of an impact on pop culture these days, but was a big hit at the time, being recut for primetime showings on Fox, spawning theatrical features (1995’s “Demon Knight” and 1996’s “Bordello of Blood“), a Saturday morning cartoon, a game show, a short-lived sci-fi spin-off called “Perversions Of Science” and three soundtrack albums. While the anthology structure doesn’t share much DNA with “Game Of Thrones,” there were other crucial ways in which it served as a forerunner. Firstly, the way in which it married genre material with unrepentant, only-on-pay-cable nudity and gore, something that the network would try only sparingly over the next twenty years. Secondly, it was the first ongoing show to borrow big movie names for the network: A-list directors and producers Robert Zemeckis, Joel Silver, Walter Hill and Richard Donner were executive producers on the show (and all directed episodes), while helmers including William Friedkin, Tobe Hooper, Peter Medak, Brian Helgeland, Tom Hanks (!), Michael J. Fox (!!) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (!!!) stepped behind the camera for episodes. There was a who’s who in front of the camera, too, with faces like Kirk Douglas, Daniel Craig, Benicio Del Toro, Demi Moore, Donald O’Connor, Christopher Reeve, Brad Pitt, Martin Sheen, Isabella Rosselini and Ewan McGregor all popping up (some pre-fame, some after it). These days, it’s a little ropey in places, particularly when the Crypt Keeper is involved, but can be a lot of fun too. With the success of the EC-indebted “American Horror Story,” maybe it’s time for a reboot? Indeed, Cinemax were said to be interested a few years back…