1. GAME OF THRONES
Seven noble families fight for control of the mythical land of Westeros. All while a very ancient evil awakens in the farthest north.
As a self-professed geek it was about 99.999% likely that I would enjoy GAME OF THRONES but even my natural predilection for all things sci-fi/fantasy/all around geeky didn’t prepare me for the immediate hold this show would have on me. It is one of the few shows that I absolutely have to watch live and I will brook no interruptions between 9-10 pm on Sunday nights during GAME OF THRONES season. Everything about George R. R. Martin’s uber-dense story is almost perfectly transferred from the page to the screen thanks to inventive direction/adaptation by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss with the spot on casting of all of the principal characters being the true stand out. I had images of what these characters were like when I read the books but now I cannot imagine anyone besides Charles Dance, Peter Dinklage, Maisie Williams, Lena Heady, etc. in these roles and it is their faces and voices that pop into my head now when reading Martin’s novels.
And the fact that such an unlikely show would become such a cultural touchstone just makes my geeky heart burst with pride because a show this good deserves to be seen and appreciated by the masses and not just those of us who are predisposed to get caught up in anything that includes dragons, snow zombies and magic assassin shadow babies.
Favorite Episode: “Baelor” (Season 1/Episode 9)
The episode that made everyone watching realize that the old rules of TV do not fit this show because no one is safe; not even the assumed lead of the show played by the biggest name in the cast. This episode was the beginning of the many, many, many horrors that befall the upright and honorable Stark clan and slapped every viewer in the face with the cold knowledge that in playing the game of thrones, honor is a liability.
But the happenings at King’s Landing was not the only tragedy as this episode brought about the end of the great Khal Drogo and heaped all sorts of misery on Daenerys. And we also learned Tyrion’s back story which explained a lot of the self-destructive tendencies the character has while also giving us a glimpse at the contentious relationship between Tyrion and his unforgiving, imperious father Tywin.
Crustula 
Those are my two favorite HBO shows too! I definitely need to see Rome still. That is one that I missed.
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Rome is great…I recommend it to everyone whenever I find out they haven’t seen it and the best part is that it is only two seasons so you can run through the whole awesome experience without having to take a huge chunk of time out of your life.
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Eastbound and Down is my #1-4 and #6.
Couldn’t agree more on The Sopranos. Everyone kept pointing to the Russian guy that escaped Paulie and Christopher in the Pine Barrens (home of the Jersey Devil!) as a dangling plot that was bound to come back and bite everyone in the ass, but nothing came of it. Instead, we got 2 or 3 seasons where the biggest stories were Johnny Sack’s fat wife and Ralphie killing a horse.
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Looking back on it there were so many unresolved dangling plot threads and just totally dropped potential storylines on the Sopranos. I think a lot of people look at the show with rose colored glasses and recall it as being much better than it actually was.
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