HBO

The fantasy saga based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels is wide in scope and long in the telling. But where the first season took awhile setting the scene and drawing the map for this saga — far-flung families battle for a throne, while icy undead doom threatens beyond a great Wall — the second season hurtled forward on the momentum it had set up. At times it struggled to juggle and connect its many story lines, asking us to take on faith that a zombie battle in the far North would someday connect with a Mother of Dragons exiled in the exotic East. But when Season 2 focused on the political intrigues behind the Iron Throne — especially the machinations of black-sheep-made-good Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) — it was a breathtaking study of how power is seized among the shadows. (HBO)

Next Girls