The speculation and anticipation for the next season of Game Of Thrones seems much higher than normal, likely given the circumstances that closed out season five. Not only did plenty of fan favorite characters get thrust into different directions, including Khaleesi and Jon Snow, but we got a taste of the thunder being wrought down from the North by the White Walkers at Hardhome.
Sadly, we might not be getting our normal fix of Game of Thrones when it normally hits. Usually we can expect Westeros to return in time for those April showers, but HBO still hasn’t announced an official return date for the series and it would seem that some newer programming may push the series into the cusp of summer. Martin Scorsese’s Vinyl, Girls, and Togetherness will all make their premieres on February 14th, meaning a delay if they get a full run according to Entertainment Weekly:
HBO usually airs its original programming for up to two hours on one night a week (Sunday) and Thrones tends to start after the network’s late-winter shows conclude — usually very late March or early April (last year Thrones returned April 6). No premiere date for Thrones has yet been announced. But given that the winter programs have 10 episodes each, Thrones couldn’t return in early April, or even mid-April, even if all three shows ran for 10 weeks straight.
So we’re looking at late April at the very earliest.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing to push Game Of Thrones closer to summer, especially with many other series needing a rub for 2016. Positioning Game Of Thrones with something like Westworld could give it a nice bump to keep it around a bit longer, too.
That said, fans of the show will likely be in a fever pitch by the typical premiere date. And given the show’s tendency to get leaked ahead of a premiere, any delay on completed episodes might toss the new episodes into uncharted territories online.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)