George R.R. Martindidn’t just create one of TV’s biggest franchises; he’s also an avid TV viewer, and he’s name-checked some of the greatest shows ever made as his personal favorites. As the author of theA Song of Ice and Fireseries and its related materials, Martin has his name on two of HBO’s best and most popular shows:Game of ThronesandHouse of the Dragon.
Martin wrote an episode of each of the first fourseasons ofGame of Thrones, and he’s credited as the co-creator ofHouse of the Dragonalongside Ryan Condal. In 2023, in response toVanity Fairnaming one of hisGame of Thronesepisodesas one of the greatest TV episodes of all time,Martin wrote a blog postabout his own personal favorite episodes of television.
He said that the one picked byVanity Fair— season 2, episode 9, “Blackwater” — was also his favorite of the episodes he wrote. But he also had plenty of praise for shows he had nothing to do with, including all-time classics likeBreaking BadandThe Wireand more underrated gems likeRomeandDeadwood.
Although it was canceled after just two seasons,Romeremains a masterpiece of television. It’s a serialized chronicle of the early days of the Roman Empire, and it’s beenwidely praised for its accurate portrayal of both broad historical events and the minutiae of everyday life in Ancient Rome.
Rome was an early precursor to the kind of depth and spectacle that audiences could expect from Game of Thrones.
Martin named it as one of his favorite shows, and it’s easy to see why.Romewas an early precursor to the kind of depth and spectacle that audiences could expect fromGame of Thrones. It has riveting plotlines, compelling characters, top-tier acting, and jaw-dropping production values.
Martin named another criminally underrated HBO series,Deadwood, as one of his favorite shows. Set in the 1870s,Deadwoodcharts the titular settlement’s growth from a camp into a full-blown town. It blends the lives of its fictional characters with the lives of real historical figures like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.
Deadwoodisa gritty revisionist western in the vein ofMcCabe & Mrs. Miller, deconstructing the tropes of the genre and presenting a darker, more historically accurate portrayal of life in the Old West.Deadwoodwas canceled much too soon, but it did get a movie to wrap things up.
Another show that gets an honorable mention in Martin’s blog post isFargo, Noah Hawley’s TV adaptation of the classic Coen brothers movie. Rather than directly adapting the plot and characters of the movie, Hawley has instead replicated the unique tone of the Coens’ Oscar-winning masterpiece.
At its core,Fargois a quintessentially Midwestern murder mystery with a pitch-black sense of humor, about ordinary people getting swept up in a life of crime. Using an anthology format, Hawley has reimagined that basic premise five times across five seasons. Some ofFargo’s seasonsskew closer to the movie than others, but they’ve all gotten the tone just right.
Martin had a lot of praise for Alan Ball’s morbid dramedySix Feet Under, but he especially lauded the series finale. He hailedSix Feet Under’s final episodeas “far and away the best finale in the entire history of television.”
He added that he “cannot imagine how anyone could possibly do better.” Martin is, of course, associated with one of the most notoriously disappointing finales in the history of television, butSix Feet Underset a very high bar.
Throughout most of its run, this story of a dysfunctional family running a funeral home was mired in the anguish and anxiety surrounding death. But the finale focuses on the joys of life and the excitement of new beginnings. It provides all the closure that audiences could’ve asked for (and still leaves them wanting more).
Charlie Brooker’s hit anthology seriesBlack MirrorbringsThe Twilight Zone’s twisty, disturbing horror-of-the-week storytellinginto the social media age. Every episodetakes a technological phenomenon to the furthest extreme imaginable. An annoying ad-supported subscription service becomes a dying woman’s lifeline. Instagram likes become the biggest deciding factor in the socioeconomic hierarchy.
Black Mirrorbegan airing on Channel 4 in the UK before being acquired by Netflix and turned into a global hit.
Martin praisedBlack Mirroras “an extraordinary series in so many ways,” but singled outseason 3, episode 4, “San Junipero,”for being “the episode I love to watch over and over, and tell my friends to watch.” Where mostBlack Mirrorepisodes are bleak, demoralizing affairs about the worst of humanity, “San Junipero” is a feel-good love story.
One of the shows that gets name-checked in Martin’s blog post isMad Men. On paper,Mad Menmight sound like a really boring show. It’s all about the office politics of an ad agency in the 1960s. Almost every scene sees its characters sitting around a boardroom, chain-smoking and discussing branding concerns.
But the genius of the series’ writing is that, even though it doesn’t have beheadings likeGame of Thronesor evil technology likeBlack Mirror(unless you count the computer), it’s still just as captivating as those shows. Don Draper and his colleagues are all such nuanced, complex characters — and the actors play them all so beautifully — that they’re endlessly watchable.
Mad Mendeftly blends riveting character drama with zany, off-the-wall humor, and Martin’s favorite episode exemplifies that curious tone.Season 4, episode 7, “The Suitcase,”is just about Don and his secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy staying in the office after hours to work on a campaign, but it’s a touching examination of their unique relationship, a hilarious farce with vomit and a drunken brawl, and a profoundly existential two-person play.
Martin wrote thatThe Sopranos, David Chase’s groundbreaking gangster drama, had “lots of great episodes,” buthe reserved particular praise for season 3, episode 11, “Pine Barrens,”a bottle episodein which Paulie and Christopher take a whacked Russian into the woods, only to find that he’s not quite dead yet. This violent farce becomes a modern-dayWaiting for Godot.
Martin said that, like the rest of us, he spent the rest of the series waiting for that Russian to reappear. Of course, he never did reappear and his fate remained a mystery. That was Chase’s style, and one of the things that made his show so powerful and true to life:he never gave the audience closure, not even in the final episode.
Martin had extremely high praise forThe Wire. He wrote, “The show was so good, it came close to perfection pretty frequently.” David Simon channeled his experiences as a crime reporter in Baltimore into this journalistic study of America’s broken institutions. Simon depicts the drug trade, the local government, and the media with an almost documentary-like sense of realism.
Simon depicts the drug trade, the local government, and the media with an almost documentary-like sense of realism.
The Wireepisode named byVanity Fairas the best was the one in which Stringer Bell was cornered by two of his enemies and killed in cold blood. Martin felt that the one in which fan-favorite Omar Little was unceremoniously gunned down in a convenience store hit a little harder, but that the show as a whole was a masterpiece.
Traditionally, television was all about maintaining the status quo. Week after week, the characters would all stick around in the same place, remain the same people with the same personalities, and stay exactly like that for as long as the show went on. But Vince Gilligan changed the game withBreaking Bad. This show is all about change.
Gilligan famously set out to turn a mild-mannered teacher like Mr. Chips into a ruthless drug lord like Scarface.George R.R. MartinnamedBreaking Badas one of his favorite shows, and specifically pointed toseason 5, episode 14, “Ozymandias,”which he described as “heart-wrenching.” This is the climactic episode where Walter White’s two worlds collide and he goes full Scarface.
