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Season 6 of Game of Thrones premieres April 24, along with Silicon Valley, Veep

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Image used with permission by copyright holder
Updated by Rick Marshall on 01-08-2016: HBO is reportedly in talks to renew Game of Thrones for a seventh and eighth season, according to Entertainment Weekly, with the eighth season possibly ending the series.

HBO has announced that three of its most popular shows — Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, and Veep — will return with back-to-back-to-back season premieres on April 24.

Game of Thrones kicks off the Sunday evening with its season six premiere at 9 p.m. With the show having finally caught up to the books, it’s anyone’s guess where the plot is headed over the course of the next 10 episodes, but a recent teaser hinted that a fan-favorite character thought to be dead and gone might not be so gone after all.

After being absent throughout the entire fifth season, Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) will be making a return this season. The young actor confirmed his return in July, and his voice can be heard in a trailer for season six.

Following the Game of Thrones kickoff, Silicon Valley will begin its 10-episode third season at 10 p.m. The comedy has always been reflective of the actual Silicon Valley, and that level of realism may be taken even further in season three. In October it was reported that former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo would be working as a consultant for the show this season.

Veep kicks off its fifth season — also 10 episodes — at 10:30 p.m. The show which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as former Vice President Selina Meyer, now president of the United States, as of the show’s third season. Season four was widely acclaimed by critics, and ended on such a note that it’s difficult to say what the fifth season will bring for the characters.

Thanks to services like HBO Now and HBO Go, it’s easier than ever to watch these shows as they air live (assuming the latter doesn’t have the same issues it did last year), but plenty of people will likely take a different route. Last month it was reported that Game of Thones remains the most pirated show on TV.

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Kris Wouk
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Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…
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House of the Dragon ended its hugely successful first season with an episode that included everything, from plots to steal the Iron Throne to dragon battles and a violent death. In short, it was just another day in Westeros. Yes, House of the Dragon was a resounding success, but it owes much of it to Game of Thrones. The show that single-handedly revived the fantasy genre and redefined what the word "spectacle" meant in television, GoT was a game-changer.

The show conquered fans' and critics' hearts with a successful mix of political intrigue and good, old-fashioned drama; there was nothing like it on television or film. Game of Thrones featured a seemingly endless parade of morally-dubious characters vying to seat on a pointy chair, and we couldn't get enough of them. Indeed, the pursuit of power was at the heart of GoT, with every major player wanting to get their share of the glory. But what is power in Westeros? Varys said it best: it's an illusion, a shadow on the wall. And these characters certainly cast a very large shadow. Whether because of their resources, armies, gold, or charm, these figures were the most powerful in Westeros and the beating heart of the game of thrones.
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Though we're only two episodes into the new series, HBO's House of the Dragon has so far successfully captured the thrill of week-to-week dark fantasy epics, political drama, and overall excitement for the characters and world of Game of Thrones. A second season was already greenlit less than a week after the series premiere but with the recent bombshell of the Kit Harington/Jon Snow-led sequel series in development, it's worth revisiting the impact of the original show as well as its potential future.

Despite a final season that went off the rails, Jon Snow cemented his status as a pop culture fantasy icon and one of the most compelling characters in Thrones' main cast. As such, he's had a great spotlight in a handful of the series' best episodes.
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Even before Game of Thrones went off the air, there was rampant and wild speculation about which show might emerge that could replace it. Game of Thrones was, according to some, the end of an era where TV fans would all watch the same show and then spend the following week discussing the latest episode and speculating about what was to come. Recently, House of the Dragon has attempted to prove that Game of Thrones can be an heir to itself, but another show that has also entered the fray hopes to become something of a phenomenon.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has often been described as Amazon's version of Thrones. The company has invested enormous sums of money into the show, and it's set in a similar fantasy universe as Thrones, with flying creatures and human actors wearing bad white wigs. George R.R. Martin, the mind behind Game of Thrones, was a huge J.R. Tolkien fan, and wrote his own fantasy series essentially in response to Tolkien's totemic works. That's part of the reason why, whatever Rings of Power turns out to be, it has to be more than just a riff on Game of Thrones, even though its source material was created long before anybody sat on the Iron Throne.
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