I Miss GOT

This might be contrary to many people’s recent opinion, but I already miss Game of Thrones. I know it’s only been two months since the finale aired, but the finality of it all feels real, even in this short amount of time. I felt the similar sense of emptiness when Mad Men ended. Like a long friendship was over.

This sense of longing swelled up when I came across the HBO 2019 series preview trailer that launched back in February of this year. It’s the one with the song Something in the Air by Steelfeather. It’s a great preview trailer, with the perfect song, showcasing to the greatness of what was, what is, and what to come, in regards to the shows on HBO (in HBO’s opinion). It sets up the post GOT world for HBO, with a little bit of something for everyone. But it was bookended but its most important show ever, scenes from the afoementioned final season of GOT. And this got me the nostalgic feels.

Nostalgic for the exciting buildup to the premiere episode. Nostalgic for the peak pop culture moment at its climax. Nostalgic, most of all, for the characters that we followed and built a relationship with, through the good times and the bad (bad) times.

It was a wild ride, that was unlike anything seen on television before. It was groundbreaking and a game changer. It has set a new bar of entry for epic and cinematic stories told on the small screen. Just look to Amazon’s foray into the Lord of the Rings series, which is estimated to be running at an all-in cost of around a billion dollars! A billion dollars for a single series that has yet to begin production, let alone air. I remember stories of the GOT producers having to beg and plead for an extra million for a single episode in the early seasons.

But this is almost part of what made GOT so special, it’s natural organic growth from a sketchy bet, of a decades old book series, in a genre that no one thought could find mainstream success, to one of the most heralded and popular series of all time. As the popularity and acclaim grew through the seasons, so did its production value and ability to show the story it wanted to tell.

Some would say this was part of its problems in the later seasons- too much spectacle, not enough story- which I would agree has some elements of truth to it. But I would also argue that some of its best episode were in the later seasons, that combined both story and spectacle (i.e. season 7 episode Spoils of War).

No show is perfect, they just feel perfect. Until they don’t. Which is what seemed to happen for most people in the last two seasons. I for one am in the camp that I’m happy with how the show turned out and seemed to me to stay true to everything the producers laid out in the prior seasons. But I’m not here to rehash that debate at this time. That is a discussion, and an article, for another day.

Looking back as whole on the series, it was a fantastic journey with some of the best characters ever seen on screen. Now we are currently in the denouement of peak pop culture, which has me in a feeling of something missing, even in this world endless choice of great scripted TV. Watching that trailer brought that feel back to the surface, even if only for a moment. But as we go into this valley, one of no great show the masses collective get behind, I know we will at some point summit that mountain again (although I’m not sure it will be quite as tall the next time around).

Until we begin that journey again, I know I can revisit this one when I am looking to relive those feelings and connections, even if it just me this time. I’ve done with Mad Men multiple times and I expect to do the same with Game of Throne.

And that is the power of great television (and film), along with modern technology, to have a need and ability to revisit those old friends as often as you’d like.