Geek Life Awards 2011: TV Show of the Year Winner
It’s easy to forget now that Game of Thrones was a pretty huge gamble for HBO. It was one of the most expensive television shows, on an episode-by-episode basis, ever produced, and unlike past efforts like Rome HBO footed the bill entirely on its own. It was described by producer David Benioff as “The Sopranos in Middle-Earth,” and if you don’t think that sounds like a typical description for a smash hit, you’re right. But the series turned out to be a major phenomenon, not to mention the best new series of the year by a fairly wide margin, and that gamble appears to have paid off. Now Game of Thrones can add one more award to its growing tally, that of Geek Life’s TV Show of the Year 2011, as voted by you, our readers.
There have been a few TV shows based off of novels in recent years, such as True Blood, but for most of these the novels serve merely as a starting point as the TV writers do what they will with the material. Game of Thrones‘ first season was something different, based very directly on the first book in a series by George R. R. Martin. As a TV series it very often felt, at its most basic level, like someone acting out scenes from a good novel for you once a week. The books aren’t exactly the most cinematic thing ever: there are lots and lots of scenes of people sitting in a room talking about things that happened before the book even started. And that meant that there was a lot of people sitting around in rooms on the TV screen, too… Yet somehow it was all riveting stuff.
Game of Thrones was, on a weekly basis, tense, well-written and surprising, with more great characters than can be counted on one’s fingers. Its beautiful locations (most of the series was shot in Northern Ireland, with some bits in Malta) showcased some great performances from its cast. Who would have thought, when HBO first announced a big fantasy series, that it would end up winning acting Emmys, but that’s just what Peter Dinklage did in the first season for his performance as the smart, cynical dwarf Tyrion Lannister. Then there was Emilia Clarke, who blew the doors off with her career-making role as Daenarys Targaryen, the young princess in exile forced to marry a barbarian King. Then there was Sean Bean, who made you want to scream at him every time he tried to do the right thing, Aidan Gillen as a shifty court advisor/brothel owner, Lena Headey as the ambitious queen, Jack Gleeson as Prince Joffrey, the year’s best screen villain bar none, and so many more.
For a series billed as Fantasy, the show is remarkably down to Earth… Yes, it’s set in a world where summers last for years and winters sometimes for decades, but all of the magical creatures that once inhabited it appear to be long gone, clearing the way for the Great Houses of Westeros to battle among themselves. The big fantastical elements of the story are kept to the very first and very last scenes of the season, which surely helped keep the budget down. In addition, though war eventually started as the season went on, we never quite saw a big battle scene. Yes, this was due to budget, but it also never seemed like the show was really interested in such things. It cares about the moments before and after the battle, when the characters make the decisions that show us who they are. As King Robert Baratheon would tell you, fighting is easy, ruling is hard.
In a year without many new major hits, Game of Thrones stands out for the impact it made on the public consciousness. I won’t spoil too much, but it probably had the most talked-about and surprising character death of the year. And it had the one season-ending moment that had everyone talking. It’s a show with strong female characters and good-looking guys waving swords around and lots and lots and lots of nudity. This was the show for which the term “sexposition” was coined. Yes, it was meant as something of an insult, making fun of the show’s tendency to liven up dialogue scenes with seemingly gratuitous sex, but maybe it also tells you something about the show’s worldview… on Game of Thrones, exposition is sexy. Talking is the new action sequence.
Winter is coming. But Game of Thrones is already here. And it seems like it will be here for a while.
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