Roots, Ray Donovan, and Orange Is the New Black are some of the shows we're watching post-Game of Thrones.
Roots, Ray Donovan, and Orange Is the New Black are some of the shows we're watching post-Game of Thrones.
Game of Thrones has come to an end and it's left a big gap. Here are some of the shows we're watching now that Thrones is over.
Ray Donovan
Chris Schulz:Game of Thrones is a brutal show about brutal people fighting for supremacy. It makes sense, then, that I'm moving on to Ray Donovan, a brutal show about a brutal man fighting for ... well, we still don't know.
After three seasons the punches have spoken louder than Donovan's words, but because of the character's hard man attitude and lip-locking silence, viewers still can't be sure where his moral compass is at.
He's a family man, that's for sure - but he hates his dad, routinely has affairs and takes particular delight at the violence required of him as a Hollywood fixer-for-hire. The glee with which he broke a man's wrist in a pool pocket still stands out amidst the show's infrequent but frequently sadistic violence.
Hopefully, Ray Donovan's fourth season takes notes from the most recent season of Thrones and starts explaining the character's motivations a little more clearly. That might make those brutal blows land a little harder.
Where and when: SoHo, Tuesdays, 8.30pm; Encores screen on Thursdays, 7.30pm
Roots
Siena Yates: It's not going to fill the gap for long as it's only a mini-series, but Roots is next on my watchlist. I watched the original Roots when I was in high school - it turned out my mum was a massive fan of ol' Kunta Kinte, so we had a family history lesson. It was a powerful thing to watch, even with its terrible quality and things I don't think I fully understood at the time. Where Game of Thrones is full of horrible acts, slavery, torture, war and death, you know it's all pretend.
A scene from the TV show, Roots.
The terrifying thing about Roots is that it's full of things equally as terrible, except they're worse because they're real. And while it's historical, it highlights the fact that we still live in a world where we're still having discussions around Black Lives Matter, and Jesse Williams still had to make that speech at the BET Awards. Besides; Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne and Malachi Kirby? You can't go wrong.
Where and when: Roots starts on TV One on July 3 at 8.30pm.
Karl Puschmann: After all the brutal seriousness of Game of Thrones you need something that's just straight up fun to watch. Wayward Pines is that show.
The series is pure 80s style, B-movie schlock. I like to think this is on purpose. It has action and mystery and a creaky premise. It has good acting and bad acting and good bad acting. It has gunfights and explosions, hell, it even has a healthy number of lynchings ... It has high entertainment value is what I'm saying.
Matt Dillon stars in Wayward Pines.
The show is set in a mysterious small town whose trapped inhabitants are under threat from ... well, to say anything would be spoileriffic. But there's scheming villains, double crossings, paranoia and, keeping with the GoT motif, plenty of unexpected character deaths and a seemingly unassailable enemy.
But don't read this, rush to Soho and jump in halfway through the currently screening season 2. Instead, go back and start at the beginning of season 1, which is streamable on Neon.
This way you'll not only experience all the satisfyingly ridiculous twists, turns and guns-blazing terrors of this small town, you'll also get to enjoy an amazingly oddball, action-hero performance from Matt Dillon.
Where and when: S2 is currently screening on The Zone. S1 is streamable on Neon.
Orange Is the New Black
Rachel Bache: It's been a couple weeks since it came out - but I've decided to savour the new season of Orange Is the New Black. Usually, I would binge watch the whole thing on Netflix asap, but with Game of Thrones pulling my attention, I decided to put it off (even if it did mean exposing myself to spoilers). But now I'm ready to crack into the world of Litchfield women's prison - packed full of amazing characters and oh so much drama.
A scene from Orange Is The New Black.
I'm a couple episodes in, which does make me very much behind the rest of the world, but sometimes it's nice to relish in a good TV show - take in each episode rather than zooming through the whole thing, plus it was totally worth the wait. The show picks up where S3 ended and even after the first episode you can tell S4 ups the ante. And if you haven't seen any of OITNB, great - even more episodes to work your way through ... Now how many weeks was it till Game of Thrones comes back?
Where and when: All four seasons streaming on Netflix now
