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Tuned In+April 15, 2011

Epic Win: HBO's Game of Thrones

By James Poniewozik

HBO’s fantastic (in more than one sense of the word) Game of Thrones debuts Sunday, and my review is in the new issue of TIME. It includes a few quotes from a long interview I did last month with author George R. R. Martin; I’m going to post the full (well, edited) interview in installments, [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 5, 2011

Geek Fight! Lost, Thrones Camps Square Off Over GRRM's Dis of Finale

By James Poniewozik

In yesterday’s New Yorker, Laura Miller (a former colleague of mine from Salon) published an excellent profile of George R. R. Martin—author of the novels on which HBO’s Game of Thrones is based—which focused on the increased demands by fans on creators in an era of ever-more online kibitzing and access. GRRM, for years, has [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | April 4, 2011

So It Begins: The First 14 Minutes of Game of Thrones

By James Poniewozik

HBO aired the opening scenes of fantasy saga Game of Thrones last night (minus the highly impressive opening credits). I’ve now seen the first six episodes, and while I don’t want to review the show in dribs and drabs—a full writeup is coming next week—it looks stunning and does a great job fitting 10 pounds [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | March 3, 2011

Game of Thrones' Creator Adding Book to Series

By James Poniewozik

When HBO announced that it was picking up the fantasy series Game of Thrones, many fans of the source books rejoiced—but with a caveat. The book series, George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire was planned as a seven-book series (it started as a trilogy, then grew), but Martin had been stalled [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | February 10, 2011

Back Down in the Treme, As of April 24

By James Poniewozik

Since HBO scheduled the debut of Game of Thrones for April, I’ve been wondering when Treme—which went back into production recently—would land back on the schedule, especially since HBO has become flush with series. Dave Walker of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the premiere reporter on the Treme beat, has word today the series will return [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | January 12, 2011

I Have Seen 15 Minutes of Game of Thrones

By James Poniewozik

I’m not at TCA press tour where it was screened, but had a chance to stream the very, very impressive 15-minute preview reel of Game of Thrones that HBO put together. (No sharing permitted, alas; above is a preview featurette that HBO aired.) After the jump, a few impressions—don’t call this a “review,” because anyone [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | January 10, 2011

TCA Roundup: AMC, HBO Set Dates

By James Poniewozik

While I shiver at my desk and another snowstorm practices on the South before heading up the East Coast, my TV critic brethren are still sitting through hours of TV executive presentations at the TCA press tour. Who has it worse? You be the judge! Over the weekend, the people-who-write-about-TV heard from the remaining cable [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | December 30, 2010

Vacation Robo-Post: TV to Look Forward to in 2011

By James Poniewozik

Having spent a lot of time this past couple of weeks looking back on 2010 here, it’s time to look forward. TV doesn’t have the same kind of lead time that, say, movies do: this time last year, we did not know what the broadcast fall schedules would be, or that Conan O’Brien would end [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | November 29, 2010

New Game of Thrones Trailer

By James Poniewozik

HBO continues to stoke interest—well, mine, anyway—in its big 2011 debut, Game of Thrones, the fantasy series based on the novels of George R. R. Martin. This minute-long trailer looks very promising, focusing on provincial nobleman Ned Stark, the character through whom the audience initially encounters the story’s intrigues. And to my eye it has [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | November 18, 2010

What Game of Thrones is Going to Look Like

By James Poniewozik

One of the most-anticipated new shows of 2011—and one of the most-anticipated shows at Tuned In since 2009—is Game of Thrones, HBO’s adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy saga. Now (TIME sister publication) Entertainment Weekly is revealing a behind-the-scenes look at the show’s production in Northern Ireland, in [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | September 14, 2010

HBO Sneak-Peeks Game of Thrones

By James Poniewozik

Before Sunday night’s season finale of True Blood, HBO aired previews of several upcoming shows, including footage from next year’s fantasy saga Game of Thrones: Cannot. Wait. (Sidebar: Did we see that raven in the Six Feet Under credits, or is that a relative?) I won’t bother parsing the bits of footage frame-by-frame (Winter Is [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | August 9, 2010

TCA Roundup: The Cable Guys

By James Poniewozik

The Television Critics Association press tour wrapped up over the weekend, with a blast of announcements from various cable channels. Whether it was the swords of Spartacus and Game of Thrones, the gangland pistols of Boardwalk Empire, or the ripped-bicep gun show that is Jersey Shore, they came heavily armed. (And look! Someone’s shooting a [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 14, 2010

The Morning After: Rubicon Job?

By James Poniewozik

After last night’s season finale of Breaking Bad, AMC aired a preview of its next drama series, the conspiracy thriller Rubicon, starring James Badge Dale, which begins in August. (Actually, though I didn’t catch the airing since I saw Breaking Bad on a screener, I believe AMC aired the full pilot. Update: They did, and [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | June 14, 2010

Winter Is Coming: HBO's First Game of Thrones Trailer

By James Poniewozik

The first Game of Thrones teaser is out. It’s short; it doesn’t say much; it doesn’t prvoe whether or not HBO will successfully wrestle the sprawling A Song of Ice and Fire books into a series. But damn, I cannot wait to see this.

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Tuned In+April 12, 2010

Today in Fictional-Language News: HBO Speaks Dothraki

By James Poniewozik

I don’t usually do blog posts about production details in TV series that don’t air for another year. But most TV shows do not entail inventing an entire freaking language. HBO’s dark fantasy saga Game of Thrones, on the other hand, does. Today the network announced that’s it’s going where James Cameron did with Na’vi, [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | March 3, 2010

HBO Picks Up Thrones, Places Bet on Dustin Hoffman

By James Poniewozik

While I was in New Orleans, visiting the set of Treme and seeing the premiere screening of The Pacific, HBO was keeping  busy on its next generation of series. First came news that Dustin Hoffman will star in the pilot of Luck, the horse-racing drama from David Milch and Michael Mann. It’s not guaranteed to [...]

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Tuned In+Television | January 6, 2010

HBO Adds to Stable With Milch, Mann Horse Drama

By James Poniewozik

David Milch is back in business with HBO, this time writing Luck, a drama pilot, to be directed by Michael Mann, about horse racing. There’s no guarantee that the pilot will become a series—since making Deadwood and John from Cincinnati, Milch made the HBO cop pilot Last of the Ninth, which never made it to [...]

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Tuned In+Television | December 31, 2009

Vacation Robo-Post: What Are You Looking Forward to in 2010?

By James Poniewozik

I may be on vacation, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not working. Depending on how you define “work.” As I write this, I’m already looking at a tall stack of screeners to watch for midseason 2010 (including Big Love, 24 and Chuck for January). And there’s quite a roster of high-profile new projects for [...]

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Tuned In+Uncategorized | October 21, 2009

Game of Thrones: Your Nonexistent HBO Series Update

By James Poniewozik

Game of Thrones—the HBO pilot based on George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels—is getting ready to shoot next week in Northern Ireland and has cemented its cast. If you’re not familiar with the show, you have a good excuse, since it does not yet exist and there’s still no guarantee [...]

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Tuned In+August 21, 2009

HBO Pilot Fills More Thrones

By James Poniewozik

I don’t ordinarily do much coverage of pilots that haven’t yet been picked up to series—much less ones that haven’t even been shot yet—but there seems to be a lot of interest in Tuned Inland about HBO’s Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin’s fantasy novels. The pilot starts shooting in October, and [...]