HBO has revealed that they won’t be sending any Game of Thrones season 6 screeners out to press, which all but ensures that excitement around this show is about to hit a new peak.
The pay cabler made the decision today in order to prevent any and all leaks from occurring from week to week once Thrones premieres on Sunday, April 24. Part of the reason why they made the decision was due to a significant leak last year when four episodes of season 5 surfaced on torrent sites.
“It’s painful for [showrunners] Dan and David [when leaks happen],” HBO head Michael Lombardo told EW on Wednesday. “When you have press copies, inevitably friends ask, ‘Can I see your copy?’ There are things that happen. We talked about the upsides and downsides. Some of the press are fans who might be disappointed, but they’ll understand.”
In case you don’t know, “screeners” are advance copies of episodes sent out to the media so they have time to write about the episode before it airs on television. That way, websites like Hypable, EW, etc. are ready to go with a review the moment the episode finishes airing on the East Coast.
Today’s news is significant because Game of Thrones will be the first popular television series to not send out any screeners whatsoever. Sometimes TV shows send out a couple of episodes or sometimes they send out all of them, but very rarely — especially for a show the size of Thrones — do they not send out any.
I already expected Game of Thrones season 6 to be the show’s biggest season yet since this will be the first time the TV series continues George R.R. Martin’s story before George R.R. Martin tells readers what happens. We were already entering unchartered territory, but now the territory just became even greater.
There will be no teaser tweets from the TV critics you follow about what to expect on a given episode. There will be no plotline leaks, which many shows suffer from. There will be no detailed recaps to read the moment the episode finishes airing. Similarly, book fans will not be able to warn you that the Red Wedding is coming.
We are all in this together. And for that reason, the internet will be going nuts on Sunday nights beginning at the end of April.
As critics quickly try to churn out their reviews, social media will be running wild with theories and analysis in real time. We will all have to deal with the twists and turns together, and no one will be able to prepare for what’s ahead. The only advance warning we’ll have are those “next time on Game of Thrones” previews at the end of each episode.
If you can’t watch live (whether on TV or on HBO Go/Now) on Sunday nights, it’d be best if you stayed very far away from social media during that time.
The lack of any advance notice from the source material and now the media ensures that Game of Thrones is about to hit all-time high viewership ratings. The anticipation for each episode will simply be huge. Season 5 had an average of 6.88 million viewers, and I expect that number to get a nice bump for season 6.
By the way: Only Game of Thrones can get away with not offering the media screeners. In this era of “Peak TV,” television critics need advance access so they can cover everything. If other TV shows tried to do this, the media would laugh and flash the show a “peace!” sign.