The final season of “Game of Thrones” drew lots of attention, not only for gaffes involving modern drinkware being left on screen, but also for what some fans deemed as poor writing and disappointing resolutions to beloved characters’ storylines.

HBO just wrapped its epic series Game of Thrones on Sunday with a a finale that broke the premium network’s ratings records and divided fans over how the eighth and final season played out. With discussion about Sunday’s capper far from slowing, we talked with HBO programming president Casey Bloys about the end of the run of the show created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the possibility of overall deals for them and J.J. Abrams...

The “Game of Thrones” series finale ratings are here and they are — as you’d expect — staggering. Across HBO, HBO Go, and HBO NOW, the conclusion of the megahit fantas…

At one point in time, Chernobyl was a relatively unremarkable town that happened to be the site of a nuclear power plant. The HBO series Chernobyl shows how it went from an unremarkable Russian town to becoming shorthand for the devastating effects that radiation can have on people. The death toll of the Chernobyl explosion is contested among different sources, but it can be universally agreed upon that the results of the explosion are a gruesome sign that the dangers of the radiation that comes with nuclear power is hard to mitigate.

Varys is dead after the penultimate episode of “Game of Thrones,” and actor Conleth Hill isn’t holding back when reflecting on his time on the HBO fantasy series. In an exit interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor expressed disappointment with the series for sidelining his fan favorite character over the last couple seasons. When asked if there was something he wished Varys got to do on the show, Hill noted his character was robbed of having a last meeting with nemesis Littlefinger in Season 7.

Game of Thrones is sprinting toward its ending, but HBO, George RR Martin and fans all agreed that it should have taken its time with more seasons.

Redditors from the /r/Freefolk subreddit, angry at how Game of Thrones’ final season has played out, briefly succeeded is getting a picture of its showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff to rank for the search term “bad writers.” Both Metro and Business Insider were able to verify the success of the campaign, although searching for the same term now returns images from these news articles rather than from the Reddit post itself.

While “Game of Thrones” wrapped up the storyline of the Night King and the White Walkers in last week’s “The Battle of Winterfell,” this week’s episode threw fans back into the battle for the Iron Thrones at remarkable speed. David Nutter, who directed not only “The Last of the Starks” but also episodes one and two of this season, said in an interview with Variety that the little moments during the post-battle celebration scene set up the tension that would fill the rest of the episode.

HBO has quietly scrubbed the misplaced coffee cup out of the “Game of Thrones” episode that aired Sunday night. The premium cabler acknowledged the gaffe Monday after fans spotted the takeout cup on a table in front of Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) in a scene in episode 4 of season 8 just before the 17:40 mark. It resembled a Starbucks cup but in fact came from the production’s craft services — and where someone left it behind in Winterfell.

Joe Dempsie is known around the world as Gendry Baratheon from “Game of Thrones,” but he would have been Jon Snow had his first audition for HBO’s fantasy series been successful. In a new interview with Esquire, Dempsie revealed he got rejected by “Thrones” three times for three different roles before reluctantly doing a fourth audition for Gendry and landing the part.

What you need to know about Chernobyl, HBO’s 5-episode miniseries from Craig Mazin, is that you cannot understand how deeply it will destroy the very fabric of your being until you see it. Which is, strangely, analogous to the fallout from the meltdown of Chernobyl reactor #4. As it was happening, and in its immediate aftermath, no one understood what it meant. “You are dealing with something that has never happened on this planet before!” says scientist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) when attempting to impress upon the Kremlin the unknowable scope of the event, which took place in April of 1986.

Apple this week revealed a new iPad Air 2019, iPad Mini 5, AirPods 2 and updated iMacs, but Tim Cook and co are not done yet. Rumours abound that Apple is about to launch its own video streaming service that will take on the likes of Netflix and Amazon. Apple is teasing its March 25 event with the words “it’s show time”, likely in reference to this TV streaming service.

Winona Ryder and John Turturro and five others were cast in David Simon’s upcoming HBO miniseries, “The Plot Against America.” Simon and Ed Burns are adapting the six-part miniseries from the late Philip Roth‘s book of the same name. Zoe Kazan, Morgan Spector, Anthony Boyle, Azhy Robertson and Caleb Malis will also star.

Disney's upcoming video streaming service, Disney+, sounds like a really sweet deal. For $6.99 a month or discounted annual subscription of $69.99, you get access to content from Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. Subscribers will also get content from Fox, which Disney now owns, starting with the complete series of The Simpsons.

We’re now facing a matter of weeks before Game Of Thrones ends its run on HBO (at least until the prequel series kicks off), but it’s going to be a long time before most of HBO’s other big shows come along to fill the Game Of Thrones-sized hole in the network’s lineup. Veep is on now, but it’s also coming to an end, and Collider is reporting that Westworld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Insecure won’t be returning to HBO until at least next year (not to mention Silicon Valley, which has been delayed into next year as well due to the sudden success of Barry).

“Game of Thrones” opened to massive ratings on Sunday night. According to figures released by HBO, the Season 8 premiere drew 17.4 million viewers across all platforms (linear, HBOGO and HBO NOW), including 11.8 million who watched on the linear channel. And that is only those who watched Sunday night. Expect the total viewers to go up considerably once delayed viewing is factored into the final numbers.

It won't surprise you to hear that Game of Thrones is a pirate magnet, but the sheer scale of that piracy may be reaching new heights. The analytics company MUSO has determined that people pirated the show's season eight premiere just shy of 55 million times in the first 24 hours. About 76.6 percent of those viewers relied on bootleg streams, while the rest were split between downloads (12.2 percent), public torrents (10.8 percent) and private torrents (0.5 percent).

The first episode of Games of Thrones' eighth and final season was pirated a lot.

Instead of kicking off with a bang, the first episode of Game of Thrones season 8 strategically placed the characters exactly where they needed to be as the encroaching Winter drew close. As part of the preparations for battle, “Winterfell” gifted viewers a number of reunions — the most heartening of which saw Jon Snow and Arya meet for the first time since the beginning of the series. Jon was never particularly close with Sansa, who often alienated him due to his status as a bastard. However, when the pair reconvened after several seasons apart, they were ecstatic to see each other.

With the rise of the #MeToo and Time's Up movements, Hollywood is facing issues of consent, harassment and sexual assault in the workplace head on.

Forget the War of the Five Kings: The running for whose Game of Thrones spinoff idea will see the light of day is turning out to be just as intriguing. In a new Hollywood Reporter post, series writer and co-executive producer Bryan Cogman says his concept for a Thrones spinoff “is not happening and will not happen. HBO decided to go a different way.”

Silicon Valley Season 3 premieres Sunday, April 24.

HBO is hunting down Game of Thrones pirates. Its weapon: warning letters. The TV network wants to stop people from illegally downloading its hugely popular and widely pirated TV series. HBO "aggressively protects its programming," the network told CBC News in an email. But many Canadians who pirate Game of Thrones claim they haven't much choice; the fantasy drama, known for its violence, nudity and plot-twists, isn't available in Canada without a costly cable subscription.

It's a week for origin stories—Hodor, White Walkers, the Faceless Men—though their motivations end up feeling more opaque than ever. Game of Thrones has always been a story about stories, and specifically about taking fantasy tales apart and putting them back together in cruel and fascinating ways. It’s interesting now, particularly in the political storylines, to see the characters themselves considering their own stories more carefully: the ones that other people tell about them, the ones they tell about themselves, and how they can change the former to the latter.

Outtakes from Season 3, Ep. 1.

Making good on years of tentative "we'll sees" from both the creator and network, Curb Your Enthusiasm will indeed return to HBO. The network on Tuesday announced a ninth season for the beloved Larry David comedy, though a formal return date was not included. Curb Your Enthusiasm last aired an original episode in September 2011, and the nearly five-year gap since has seen neither HBO nor David ready to publicly dismiss the idea of revisiting the show.

Game of Thrones ratings have reached new heights in season 6. U.S. viewership of the HBO fantasy hit have now surpassed 23 million viewers episode when all forms of viewing are counted (that’s originals, repeats, DVR and streaming). Even with the season not yet finished and data still incomplete, that tally is up 15 percent from season 5, which was the show’s previous record holder. Among adults 18-49 – a demo not tracked by HBO, yet interesting to look at nonetheless...

Game of Thrones’ Season 6 finale had revenge, hollowed monarchies, a lot of death, parentage revelations and new alliances packing its nearly 70-minute run on June 26. The David Benioff and D.B. Weiss written “The Winds of Winter” episode also had 8.89 million viewers – an all-time high for the HBO series. With this season having sped ahead of the George R.R. Martin books on which the blockbuster series has been based, Sunday’s finale was up 16% over the war heavy “Battle of the Bastards” episode of June 19. The Miguel Sapochnik directed Season 6 ender was also up 10% from the David Nutter...

Fans of “Eastbound & Down” will be happy to know that “Vice Principals,” the new HBO comedy starring Danny McBride, promises the same type of debauchery. “Vice Principals,” however, is settling into the television trend of “short and sweet,” in other words — few seasons. “The whole series is only 18 episodes and that’s it. We just wanted to make a really long movie. It’s one school year and a complete story,” McBride said at the show’s premiere.

Summer is coming. HBO is officially confirming some major changes for Game of Thrones. Season 7 of the fantasy sensation will not return until summer 2017 – pushing back from the show’s usual strategy of premiering each edition of the series in the spring (typically April). Also, the network is confirming for the first time that next edition will consist of seven episodes (a pull back from the show’s usual 10 hours). Plus, HBO added that the next season will be shot in Northern Ireland, Spain, and Iceland.

Say goodbye to Project Greenlight. For now. HBO says it will not renew the docuseries, which was executive produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Deadline reports. “When we picked up a new season in 2014, we imagined a one-season revival and decided in early 2016 another season did not make sense for us,” HBO said in a statement. “We are proud of the show and were pleased with its run throughout the years.” Damon told the Associated Press that he was surprised at the network’s decision, but understands it.

The Hollywood Reporter turned out with an article expressing that they’ve heard the financial plan for the whole first period of HBO’s Westworld, 10 scenes, was $100 million. The pilot alone $25 million itself. That is a considerable measure of cash, particularly for TV so it’s protected to say that there is a great deal riding on this arrangement.

The Wall Street Journal reports that AT&T has reached a deal to acquire Time Warner for more than $80 billion. News of the merger first surfaced on Friday, when Reuters and Bloomberg reported that the deal could top $85 billion. If successful, AT&T will gain control of huge entertainment and news brands including HBO, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and CNN, and resembles efforts by competing ISPs in recent years to create enormous media conglomerates. Since one of Time Warner's holdings is DC Comics, the wireless company will also be acquiring Batman.

Two of the most popular Curb Your Enthusiasm recurring guest stars, husband-and-wife duo Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, have closed deals to return for the upcoming ninth season of Larry David’s HBO comedy. They will join the series’ core cast — David, Jeff Garlin, Cheryl Hines and Susie Essman — who also are set to come back.