Game of Thrones
(Premieres 13th April)
I’m not sure there’s much point me saying a great deal about this one. We all know the drill by now and we’re probably all hopelessly addicted. Season five of HBO’s fantasy juggernaut hits our screens in April and there will be more scheming, betrayal, murder, sex and fighting than our eyeballs can take. Someone important will die. Someone always dies and it’s always in the most soul crushing and brutal way. Just … be ready, okay?
But this year there’s a new twist to proceedings. Remember sitting down to watch the show with the one smug guy whose read all the books? Remember the red wedding when your bookworm friend just watched you gleefully as you broke down in abject horror? Well, Game of Thrones pope himself, George R R Martin, said earlier this year that season five would see character deaths that haven’t and won’t happen in the books. From here on out book readers will be weeping just as hard as you when their favourite character is suddenly cut in half by a white walker.
As for the plot, it’s unclear how closely the show will adhere to the rather overwritten fourth book, A Feast For Crows. But we are sure to see the continued adventures of Tyrion, Arya, Jon Snow, Daenerys and the court of King’s Landing. In a spoilerish turn of events (that’s a spoiler warning by the way), set pictures have surface online of Tyrion hanging out with the Mother of Dragons herself, Daenerys, in the new series.
Channel: Sky Atlantic
Anticipation level: 10 out of 10
Thunderbirds are Go!
(Premieres 15 April)
Don’t look at me like that. I’m not making this up. The Gerry Anderson classic from your childhood is getting a CGI update. International Rescue is back, but the puppets are gone.
This new version is nominally for kids, so don’t expect it to be like the gritty Power Rangers re-imagining that hit the internet earlier this year, but I know I’ll be checking out a few episodes to see how it holds up. My main concern for the show is that, by ditching the marionettes, the residents of Tracey Island have inadvertently wandered into the uncanny valley. Pictures of the new character models look sinister and dead eyed. Hopefully when they’re moving about and saving the planet they’ll look a bit more human.
As far as I can tell the set up will be the same as before. The incredibly wealthy Tracey family live on an island named after themselves enjoying a life of luxury .. except that they’re also secretly behind International Rescue, an organisation that helps people out of danger across the planet. They do this with special aircraft, spaceships and submarines called Thunderbirds. For whatever reason they keep their involvement a secret and no one ever notices the Thunderbirds all seem to come from roughly the same island. Seriously, does nobody spot that the closer to Tracey Island the disaster the sooner International Rescue show up?
Channel: ITV
Anticipation level: 5 out of 10
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