Yeoman's in the Fork Blog

For years I would have never considered paying extra for HBO. In my mind paying extra for a channel that showed movies they wanted to show and at the times they chose to show them didn't make a lot of sense, especially when the movies were already available for rent or purchase elsewhere. The good news for HBO is that someone who works for them was probably thinking the same thing only he was thinking it many years before I did. HBO has well over 100 original programs to its credit. This idea of creating quality programming instead of relying on a potentially dying format of playing movies everyone has seen is one that has likely saved HBO, Showtime and channels like them. For HBO, the success of OZ and of course, The Sopranos, and Sex and The City gave them early success and demonstrated that this new approach could work. Their programming has garnered the network numerous Emmys.

I must admit that I am usually a late arrival on the scene of what is new and hip and thus, I didn't even watch The Sopranos. Yes, I am one of the only people in America who have never seen even one episode. However, lately I have been watching a lot of their programming. A new series that is now 4 episodes old is Game of Thrones. It is based on the series of novels by George R.R. Martin. The series by Martin is called A Song of Ice and Fire. There are to be seven novels, four of which have been released with the fifth due this summer. Hopefully, HBO will not leave us all out in the cold on this one and will produce the series in totality with the novels. If you haven't had a chance to watch the series, I highly recommend that you do. I have heard it described best by one of the writers for the show, David Benioff, when he said the series is "The Sopranos in Middle Earth."