Desperate Pitches For Your Next HBO Obsession

Here at HBO, everything is under control.

Just like Jon Snow, we’re cool as cucumbers. Photo: HBO

NOTE: This piece was co-authored by Lillian Stone & Cara Michelle Smith.

Yes, Game of Thrones is ending. Yes, it’s the most successful television show in history. And, yes, there are probably millions of subscribers who’ve stuck around all these years for one show, and one show only. But fear not! Our crackerjack team of programmers at HBO has got it under lock. This killer lineup of prestige television will surely capture the hearts, imaginations and continued subscription of millions of Game of Thrones fans.

And if they don’t? Well, we’ll all be fired without severance! Just kidding. We’ll get severance.

THE WESTWORLD REPLACEMENT
OK, everybody knows we were counting on Westworld to take the baton. That didn’t happen. Which is fine. Season Two cost $100 million. It’s fine. So, instead of Westworld, HBO presents … Backwoods Planet. In Backwoods Planet, everything — and nothing — is real. It’s got costumes. It’s got syrupy accents. It’s got artificial intelligence, humans falling in love with robots, and a bunch of horses. But it’s not Westworld. Jonathan Nolan is insistent that this is not Westworld all over again.

THE DYSTOPIC SHOW ABOUT TECHNOLOGY RUN AMOK
The year is 2065, and people can only communicate through Google Calendar. Brides are devastated, because wedding invitations all look the same now. Emojis are gone, because emojis are considered extremely hostile in Google Calendar. Want to ask somebody on a date? Send them an invite on Google Calendar, and be sure to make it public, or the F.C.C. (Federal Calendar Commission) will intercept your invite from ever being sent. Has technology gone too far? Honestly, no. Or … has it? Who’s to say.

Fans of Black Mirror will hate Google Me This.

THE GRITTY MAFIA DRAMA
A mafia family deals exclusively in old diner benches in this saga of love, loss, and big stains. I mean, the show isn’t about the benches, per se — it’s really about the lengths we’ll go to protect the family unit. Still, it’s hard to ignore just how stained these black market benches are. Maybe we shouldn’t have made the benches that stained?