Is This the Golden Age of Fantasy Television?

HBO’s Game of thrones changed everything. Have you noticed? How many fantasy shows were there to watch on TV and/or streaming services before GOT? Like, seriously, how many High Fantasy or Epic Fantasy shows can you name from before the premier of GOT? I’m not counting Urban Fantasy shows like Dresden Files, Grimm, Supernatural, Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other things like that. I’m talking about fictional worlds in a medieval setting with magic and mythical creatures. I doubt you can name more than five.

Fantasy Shows were Limited Before Game of Thrones

Not counting Urban Fantasy shows (where a fantasy world overlaps or is hidden within the modern world), Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, and Xena: Warrior Princess are the only shows I can think of. You still had the occasional Science Fiction shows (Stargate, Star Trek) that had single episodes in Fantasy-like worlds or hologram fantasy situations. I even remember MacGuyver having an episode in a medieval castle that was like a dream or something, but that was it. Unless there were shows I just didn’t know about, Fantasy has been criminally underrepresented, despite there being many fantasy novels, card games and video games from the early nineties to 2010. Even with The Lord of the Rings movies redefining fantasy adaptation as a whole, that didn’t spark much on TV. Not yet anyway. Go ahead and comment if you can think of shows I either forgot about or didn’t ever see.

Game of Thrones Opened the Floodgates

Everything changed for the world of fantasy in 2011. It’s not like HBO’s GOT was a minor network’s lineup filler, HBO went all-in, turning GOT into one of the highest budget shows of all time. That kind of confidence, praise and success made other networks scramble for fantasy IP’s to adapt into shows. One of the first imitators was MTV’s The Shannara Chronicles. I don’t know about you, but the two don’t compare. MTV’s attempt at capturing a fraction of GOT’s magic fell flat.

But that failure didn’t stop Netflix from picking up The Witcher or Shadow and Bone. The Wheel of Time‘s second adaptation, guided by Amazon and Sony has obviously done well, even if fans of the novels might be divided. But WOT wasn’t the only Fantasy racehorse Amazon bet on. They ruffled feathers by nabbing the rights to Lord of the Rings and just recently named their upcoming streaming series The Rings of Power. Now, a list of current and upcoming Epic Fantasy series is extensive, diverse, and thriving. Disney+ or Hulu will probably follow the trend, as well as other streaming platforms.

I imagine more will come until it becomes the hipster trend to dislike Fantasy shows and act like they’re all the same and the whole genre is tired out. It’ll happen eventually, but until then, word of GOT spinoffs and extensions of cancelations of other shows will run wild for a few more years yet at least. There’s enough time for Epic Fantasy to have a firm foothold and not all get swept away as quickly as it arrived. Fantasy books haven’t gone away, and I can’t imagine them ever totally going out of style. Speaking of…

I Wrote a Fantasy Novel called Withered Kingdom

I’ve invested a lot of my life into writing a fantasy series. I would love for it to make it to a streaming platform or network someday, but that will take some time. Thanks for reading my blog post, please take a look at my book, Withered Kingdom. It’s a book about a man who lost all the memories of his former life. Plenty of people see the truth, and call him an angel, but Gia doesn’t believe it. The world around him is awash in a war of magic and steel. Can his half-giant friend help Gia find his purpose? Buy the book as a paperback or ebook today to find out!