Game of Thrones

“Two Swords” isn’t necessarily the most explosive season opener, but it is smartly bookended around two blades belonging to the Starks, beginning on the death of Ice and ending on the resurrection of Needle; the title, of course, evidently refers to the pair of blades Tywin has forged from Ned Stark’s enormous Valyrian steel sword. Ned Stark’s most prized weapon (and also the sword that took his head), Ice is melted down into two smaller blades, with one of them given to Jaime Lannister, now without his fighting hand. The mythology surrounding Valyrian steel is interesting in itself: it’s nearly indestructible and Ice is an heirloom that has been in the Stark family for four centuries.

5. Orange is the New Black (Netflix) After the much-hyped release House of Cards and return of Arrested Development, Netflix released Orange is the New Black with little fanfare, seemingly unaware of just how great a series they had on their hands. Based on the true story of a white, privileged thirty-something who is sentenced …

The beginning of the year had a wealth of TV riches, a trend that continued through the spring. Here’s part two of Kate Kulzick, Simon Howell, Ricky D, and Randy Dankievitch’s list of 2013’s best TV episodes.

Sometimes, it’s the small moments in which you find joy. So it goes with Thor: The Dark World, a movie that frequently botches the big-picture details but balances out the messiness on the whole with minute gags, throwaway lines, and offhand glances that are laid-back and assured. The returning cast members have enough built-in chemistry, and the script has enough moments of genuine wit and cleverness, that Thor: The Dark World doesn’t sink despite being weighed down with an enormously, unnecessarily convoluted story.

At the Edinburgh TV Festival, Neil Cross, the writer and creator of the popular BBC crime drama Luther, said that he is working on a screenplay for a film prequel to Luther. Idris Elba would return along with Warren Brown, Indira Varma, and Steve Mackintosh and the film would focus on Luther’s relationship with his wife Zoe, ending …

As my Televerse cohost Simon Howell and I discussed in our Top 10 TV Series of 2013 (So Far), this has been a spectacular year for television, with many shows delivering remarkably consistent seasons (or half-seasons) of memorable, moving television. A number of series were in contention for our Top 10 but didn’t quite make …

I have a problem. Every year, when it comes time for a large awards show (which in my mind includes only the Emmys, the Golden Globes, and the Oscars. Grammys are a waste of time, energy, and gold plating), I get angry. When nominees are released, I tend to read the first time through with …

Even moreso than before, the third season of Game of Thrones has had to negotiate a very difficult balancing act: more characters in more locales than ever before, a whole lot of doomy portent and foreshadowing of things that may not come to pass for a very long time, and plots that advance at hugely different paces all competing for screentime. With all that considered, and with some more reflection yet needed, I’d say Season Three is roughly on par with Season One (which had issues all its own) and certainly greater than Season Two.

If Ray Bradbury was alive now and willing to half-ass the execution of a fairly novel concept, he might’ve written The Purge. Here is a movie with an easy-to-parse core that makes less sense with each passing second, if only because the world of the film, on a grand scale, does not exist. The question at the center of The Purge is morbidly fascinating—what if crime was legal across the United States for one 12-hour period every year?—but at least in this vision, it chooses to sidestep logic and world-building, and buckles under the weight of such slight storytelling.

It’s been a strange couple of months for Game of Thrones fans who haven’t read the books, such as myself. Book-series veterans (the spoiler-respectful ones, anyway) have looked on with a sense of both dread and dark glee, referring only to “the RW,” which I’d incorrectly assumed stood for “Royal Wedding,” of which we got one last week with relatively little incident There’s about 45 minutes of content in “The Rains of Castamere” that does not consist of the Red Wedding, but you’d never know it for the furor that erupted on social media moments after the doors to the Freys’ hall closed and the strains of the episode’s titular ballad are audible. It’s here, finally, even more than Season One’s “Baelor,” that Game of Thrones finally earns its “anyone can die” motto. This got downright Satanic.

Below is an example of some of the amazing art work created by Mike Wrobel. Visit his website to see more.

Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 8: “Second Sons” Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Michelle MacLaren Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO Credit where credit’s due: in her second go at directing Game of Thrones, Michelle MacLaren once again gets an episode that’s relatively light on actual incident, but still manages …

Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 7: “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” Written by George R. R. Martin Directed by Michelle MacLaren Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO You might reasonably expect that an episode penned by series originator George R. R. Martin and featuring the Thrones directorial debut of Breaking Bad veteran Michelle MacLaren will be …

In a pre Breaking-Bad summer where exceptional shows like Mad Men and Game of Thrones come but once a week, alot of viewers are left with fantastic amounts of time to invest in great programming. So for whoever’s got the time here are the 5 best experiences British television has to offer. Each entry has …

Those who are more privy of HBO’s future plans may correct me on this, but seeing as the events of the third book of A Song of Ice and Fire, A Storm of Swords, are supposedly being spread out over two seasons, we can reasonably expect that Game of Thrones will be at least an eight-season affair.

Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 5: “Kissed by Fire” Written by Brian Cogman Directed by Alex Graves Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO Remember last week, when Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons unleashed literal hellfire and everyone declared it the greatest thing ever? Though most of its pleasures are far subtler, “Kissed by …

Every so often, you can almost physically feel the shift a film makes as it attempts to lift the rug from under your feet. Most times, though not all, such shifts being so cognitively visible are a burden, and that’s the case with The Angels’ Share, Ken Loach’s most recent film, the Jury Prize winner at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 4: “And Now His Watch Is Ended” Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by Alex Graves Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO The usual drill: I haven’t read the books, so don’t spoil future plot events in the comments. Why does Daenerys Targaryen have it so …

Game of Thrones, Season 3, Episode 3: “Walk of Punishment” Written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss Directed by David Benioff Airs Sundays at 9pm ET on HBO Apologies for the tardiness; life happened. The usual stuff: I haven’t read the books, please do not spoil future events in the comments. Thank you kindly. Game …

As Season 3 of the Seven Kingdoms epic comes rampaging out of the starting gate like a ravenous direwolf in search of fresh meat, you could be forgiven for thinking that, like the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones has no serious competition in TVLand. Think again. Lurking in the shallow waters of the History Channel …

Is there are doubt at this juncture that women are the true rulers of Westeros, at the very least in commanding our attention, if not outright color of law? All through “Dark Wings, Dark Words” (a deeply foreboding title for an episode in which much is discussed but not a whole lot actually happens), Game of Thrones spends most of its time catching us up with the female denizens of the Seven Kingdoms, often making their male counterparts come across a little on the dull or at least undistinguished side in the process.

Earlier this year, when Netflix released all of House of Cards’s first season simultaneously, it prompted industry-wide speculation about the implications, and whether or not other series or networks might follow in their footsteps. It’s to our collective detriment that HBO probably won’t be adopting that sort of release strategy for any of its programs for the foreseeable future, because Game of Thrones is an obvious candidate.