In the distant arcane past medieval and ancient-style fantasy on TV was confined to campy guilty pleasures like Xena: Warrior Princess. TV fantasy was kept in its own box far away from high budgets and awards prestige. That all changed in 2011 with the launch of Game Of Thrones on HBO.
Suddenly magic, dragons and made up languages were no longer just the preserve of a handful of nerds living in their parents’ basements. They were at the heart of TV’s hottest phenomenon.
For most of the 2010s Game Of Thrones was the biggest thing on the small screen. Its combination of epic fantasy, complex political machinations and HBO’s usual uninhibited sex and violence – part Lord Of The Rings, part I, Claudius, part The Sopranos – may have seemed risky at the time, but soon became a template that others were keen to follow.
Once Thrones proved there was a market for it, every channel wanted their own dark and gritty fantasy world or sexed up story of medieval power struggles.
But Westeros remained supreme, while the pretenders to its crown rose and fell like Stannis Baratheon’s claim to the Iron Throne.
All shows must die, though, and now that Thrones has finished (and its place atop the medieval fantasy pile perhaps taken by The Witcher) it’s the perfect time to look back over a decade of programming that tried, and mostly failed, to capture a bit of its glory.
