Game of Thrones (season 3)
"Game of Thrones" rapidly became a critical and commercial success after it started airing in April 2011. A few days after ratings for the second season's premiere, "The North Remembers", hit a series high of 8.3 million viewers, HBO announced the show's renewal for a third season. Prior to that announcement, there had been rumors and reports that showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss planned to shoot seasons three and four simultaneously. Benioff said that this would be very efficient, but impossible to write.
Golden Age of Television (2000s–present)
Shows such as "The Sopranos" (which first aired in 1999), "Six Feet Under" (2001), "The Wire" (2002), "Battlestar Galactica" (2004), "Lost" (2004), "Mad Men" (2007), "Breaking Bad", (2008), and "Game of Thrones" (2011), are generally considered the basis of the so-called Golden Age of Television, i.e. the new creator-driven tragic dramas of the 2000s and 2010s. The Writer's Guild of America vote for 101 Best Written TV Shows includes a complete foundation of the current Golden Age of Television.