After Game of Thrones, HBO’s Palette Cleansers Spell Hope

It can be hard to recall the fervor surrounding Game of Thrones at its peak. Not “peak” in terms of audience, recognition, or cultural influence – that would indeed belong to its most recent episode, a series finale that netted over 19 million viewers worldwide, a record for HBO. Instead, the epic fantasy reached its fandom peak just before it became a household name, the cultural moment in which a series meets its tipping point to become a cultural phenomenon. For Game of Thrones, that moment came in Season 1, Episode 7, “Baelor” with the death of its star, Ned Stark. Go back and watch the Season 2 trailer for Game of Thrones titled “Seven Devils;” perhaps nothing could match the level of excitement early Game of Thrones fans felt in 2012. And after any cultural phenomenon, a network is left with an obvious question of its successor: what next? HBO’s Barry The moment of Ned Stark’s death was a roll of the dice by the series, maintaining fidelity to the source material despite meaning the loss of their biggest-named actor, Sean Bean. The series had to run without its star character, and the question on every editorial and think piece was somewhere akin to the question of whether an ensemble TV show can thrive without a protagonist? Of course, there have been ensemble star-less casts that live among the greatest TV programs of all time; one only has to think as far back as The Wire, having ended only 3 years before Game of Thrones began, on the very same network. Where The Wi…