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HBO Striking While the Iron is Hot, Producing Even More ‘Game of Thrones’ Spin-Offs

Game of Thrones

Young Sheldon is a rather middle-of-the-road sitcom about the origins of The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper, a person who experienced no real character growth whatsoever from his childhood until the last episode of that show when he realized other people matter as much as he does. This rather limits the story potential of the series as character development is one of the pillars of modern television storytelling.

The show is still a rather decent ratings success for CBS, though, because they launched it while The Big Bang Theory was the number one show on television and some people who were fans of that show started watching the spin-off and got into the habit of watching it.

The number two television series at the time, just barely behind The Big Bang Theory in the ratings, was Game of Thrones. Those shows ended within a few days of each other in 2019 and people have generally moved on, especially from Game of Thrones after its incredibly disappointing ending.

HBO doesn’t want to admit that they missed their window to further monetize the brand and is launching just a ton of spin-offs, years after anyone actually still gave a s**t.

Variety reports HBO is developing three more spin-offs in addition to the Targaryen-focused House of the Dragon.

“9 Voyages” would center on Lord Corlys Velaryon — known as the “Sea Snake” and head of House Velaryon, husband to Rhaenys Targaryen — on the Sea Snake vessel. The most well-known nautical adventurer in all of Westeros, Lord Corlys — built a house even wealthier than the Lannisters and claims the largest navy in the world.

“Flea Bottom” would take place in the poorest district of King’s Landing, while “10,000 Ships” revolves around Princess Nymeria, who journeyed with the Rhoynar to Dorne and married Lord Mors Martell.

None of those sound interesting, but Flea Bottom sounds the least interesting.

A Song of Ice and Fire is something of a cautionary tale for writers on not letting your plot bloat. He started with an outline for three books and he could have written those three books twenty years ago. His plot kept taking detours as he kept expanding the three locations he had initially set the story in and he wanted to delve into the politics of the Iron Islands or take a break and write a two-book Silmarillion-esque history of the Targaryen family or whatever, and now he’s probably never going to finish the series, which has ballooned a seven-book series.

No one wants more Game of Thrones. No one is asking for these. The precipitous drop in quality of the show after it ran out of material to adapt killed the franchise. But HBO is still unwilling to admit that Watchmen bombed, and they haven’t really had a big hit since Game of Thrones, so this is what they’ve got and they’re going for it.

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