It’s one of the biggest strengths and also the biggest frustrations of Game of Thrones that it only runs for 10 weeks a year. 10 measly weeks. For about two and a half months, the most pirated show in history captures the attention of the entertainment world with all of its twists and turns and sex and nudity and unexpected deaths of major characters and general fascination. Then for the other nine and a half months we sit by our computer screens scouring for fan theories and casting leaks. Some of us even go so far as to read the books.

But the brevity of the seasons are part of what makes it so great. Always leave the audience wanting more, as they say in Show Business. It does mean that we loyal fans (and if we weren’t that, then we never would have made it this far) are left in limbo every year like Bran beneath that mystical tree or whatever that was. The show can pick up where it left off, but for us viewers, Tyrion spent most of last year in a box. Jon Snow will spend most of this year slowly bleeding out on the icy terrain of Castle Black (MEDIC! SOMEONE CALL A MEDIC!). It’s best not to dwell on it.

So in the meantime, here are some other shows to watch. All based on the various reasons why we watch Game of Thrones in the first place. We live in a golden age of television, don’t you know?

Gritty, Dark HBO Telly

Hey, whaddaya know? No sooner has Thrones finished than another HBO flagship show returns. Season Two of True Detective promises just as many intense, internal struggles and ponderous glares but without the trippy philosophy that was a little hit or miss in the first season. We don’t know yet if that’ll be an improvement or not (guessing yes?), and it doesn’t really matter. The show easily did enough in 2014 to sell itself for another go around. Vince Vaughn in a dramatic role will be hit or miss enough already, though Colin Farrell is always fantastic.

Brooding Characters Making Tough Decisions

Nobody carried the tormented burdens of leadership quite like Don Draper of Mad Men. Okay, granted he was making corporate and personal decisions (What drink should I order at lunch? Which secretary should I sleep with next?) and not the kind of apocalyptic calls that Jon Snow had to make, or the riot-abating choices that Daenerys has struggled with. But the sight of Jon Hamm (no ‘H’, you notice?) staring into space with a whiskey in his hand is not so far removed as you’d think from that of Tyrion Lannister, another powerful man with burning secrets and a penchant for a drop or two. Except for the height difference, naturally.

Massive Production Values

Martin Scorsese got in early for Boardwalk Empire, directing the pilot episode for a total cost of around US$18m. That’s Lannister gold right there. It also happens that Boardwalk is a really good show, set in Atlantic City during the prohibition, with impeccably designed period design and one of the best acting casts in TV history. It’s five-season run wrapped up last year.

Extreme Violence

If you made it this far through Thrones then you can handle a few beheadings, throat cuttings, stabbings and maybe the odd skull crushing in your telly viewing. So you’re well prepared for the horror and dreamy violence of Hannibal. Created by Bryan Fuller, the show has a very stylised look about it, fitting nicely within the fine tradition of adaptations based on Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter novels. But it ain’t for the squeamish.

The Trappings Of Power

Mr Chips becomes Scarface. The famous pitch that Vince Gilligan made in selling Breaking Bad, his show about a high school chemistry teacher who instead of having an affair or buying a Porsche, uses his mid-life crisis as an excuse to become one of the biggest drug manufacturers in America. And he doesn’t exactly handle the power all too wisely. Not as bad as Joffrey, maybe, but worse than plenty of others to play the Game of Thrones and fall short. Incredible show.

Badass Female Leads

Some people struggle with the idea that female characters can successfully carry a show (by ‘some people’, read: ‘television executives’). Luckily for fans of the many multifaceted, fascinating ladies on GoT (top of the bill being Arya Stark, of course), Netflix popped in with Orange Is The New Black. A PR exec is sent to a minimum security women’s prison for a decade old indiscretion and the result is a raft of laughs and bittersweetness. ‘Universal acclaim’ is always a nice thing to be able to say about a show.

Characters Reckoning With Daddy Issues

The Lannisters, the Starks, the Sand Snakes, the Targaryens… there isn’t a shortage of GoT characters dealing with the legacies good/bad/ugly left behind by their parents. The same goes for Raylan Givens on the show Justified. It’s a Niche Cache favourite, and just wrapped up its sixth and final season a few months back. Raylan is a maverick lawman in the Dirty Harry tradition sent back to his hometown in Harlan County, Kentucky, where he’s reunited with all manner of shady folk from his past, not the least of whom being his daddy Arlo, a hardened career criminal who never told him that he loved him (and there are reasons throughout the series to think that he probably didn’t).

Genre Subversion

Long before Game of Thrones turned up and televised George R.R. Martin’s clever subverting of the fantasy epic by killing off heroes, blurring the lines between good/evil and letting horrible acts go unpunished, David Lynch and Mark Frost were doing the same thing to the telly crime saga with Twin Peaks. Turning the usual plot-and-twist driven cliché into something haunting, surreal and expressive. Not to mention revolutionary. The level of control that Lynch and Frost had was unprecedented, clearly paving the way for the showrunner generation of today. Oh, and guess what? THEY’RE MAKING ANOTHER SEASON!

Enormous Cast of Characters

It’s pretty difficult to stay on a name & face basis with the many different names and faces of Game of Thrones. Luckily we’ve had over 25 years to get to know the hundreds of characters that regularly grace the heavily-stocked world The Simpsons. You may have heard of this one, it’s only the greatest and most influential cartoon sitcom in history. Just stay clear of anything released this millennium, coz 25 years is a long, long time to keep churning out top scripts and The Simpsons these days is nothing more than regurgitated trash. But the first eight seasons are transcendently, transgressively brilliant and absolutely hilarious.

Dense, Complex Plots

The Wire. It might be the most unanimously adored show of all time. Hyper-realistic, The Wire explores the drug-dealing streets of Baltimore from the point of view of the lawmen and the dealers both. Every season they expanded their view to integrate a new area of the city – season four with the school system might be the greatest single season of television ever made. With no regard for common narrative cheats and a dedication to honest language, it can be a near-impossible show to follow sometimes. Don’t let it bother you. You can’t name the whole Targaryen family tree either, can you? (Also, look for Littlefinger as Tommy Carcetti, a similarly ambitious politician in a very different context).

Unexpected Twists

The supremely watchable Orphan Black is the story of a woman who turns out to be a clone in the middle of this massive conspiracy where genetics and humanity collide. The gimmick is that Tatiany Maslany portrays all of the many clones, but her performances are so incredible that each feels like the fully realised and individual character that they were written to be. The conspiracy stuff is a little overwhelming as people come in and out to double/triple/quadruple cross each other as every answer poses three more questions. It’s almost like they’re making it up as they go along, but it’s so much fun that you just go along with the ride.

Questionable Ethics/Morals

Here’s the pitch: A New Jersey mob boss deals with problems both professional and personal, which he tries to balance by taking the unprecedented mafia move of visiting a psychiatrist. Sound familiar? It bloody should, The Sopranos is only one of the most celebrated TV shows ever made! Tony Soprano is a family man through and through. A family man who regularly cheats on his wife and is an actual cold-blooded killer. Cersei Lannister would approve.

English Accents

Along with sporting one of the best names of any show, the BBC series Peaky Blinders also has some fantastic accents. It’s a gangster show set around a Birmingham family in the years after the First World War. Fast, fun and pulpy, Blinders has plenty enough awesome lines delivered in glorious British articulation to appease those pining for those Anglophiliac tones of Thrones. The Queen may not approve, albeit. Killer soundtrack too.

People Living Double Lives

The Stark girls have been living under assumed identities since the end of season one. Arya’s even learning how to change her face. They could probably learn a thing or two from Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings on The Americans. Tell ya what, the wig budgets must be through the roof. The pair are a husband and wife duo of Soviet spies living undercover in suburban America during the Reagan years of the Cold War. There’s a new disguise for every covert mission, as they balance their staunch politics and devoted nationalism with raising their young teenaged kids in America (who have no idea of their parents’ secret identities).

Magic & Fantasy

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a risky one, because it’s new and unproven. However the show, made by the BBC, is based on Susanna Clarke’s best-selling and much adored novel of the same name so there’s some proven source material for this seven-part mini-series to work from. Set in an alternate magical history (around the Napoleonic Wars) where the supernatural is an acknowledged fact but also – very Britishly – not a huge deal. Plus it has several ex-GoTers in its cast.

Dirty Politics

Well of course we’re talking House of Cards here. Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood would have an absolute ball on the King’s Council of Westeros. A cynical view of shady politicians, the only way they should ever be represented. Plus it’s based on a British show of the same name, which is usually a good sign. Underwood is one part Tywin Lannister, one part Littlefinger. Wonder who’d win in an election between the trio…

Philosophical Dilemmas

GoT likes its profound and philosophical mysteries. Like the commentaries on human cruelty and reconciliation of power. The Sundance Channel’s Rectify is a similarly profound show, though stripped of everything that couldn’t realistically happen in a contemporary southern US town. Daniel Holden has spent half his life in prison on death row for the rape and murder of his high school girlfriend, when he is finally released after new DNA evidence earned him a retrial. Did he do it? After two seasons we still don’t know. Instead of answers we have a captivating, hypnotic, heartbreakingly gorgeous show that is criminally under-seen. It moves slowly with the deliberate weight of the Southern Gothic and the kind of show-don’t-tell characterisation that only the best can pull off.

Tortured Family Sagas

Another Netflix show, Bloodline was rolled out all at once on the streamers to pretty solid reactions. It isn’t a 10/10 show by any means, however the cast – led by Kyle Chandler and featuring great work from Sissy Spacek and Ben Mendelsohn – is superb and the show is continually and deliberately enthralling. The family’s black sheep returns home and the rest of the family are forced to face the supressed demons of their past. Look guys, what are they gonna do about Danny?

Swear Words

Thrones definitely doesn’t hold back on its C’s, F’s and S’s, but you’ve never heard the word ‘cocksucker’ like you’ll hear it on Deadwood. Especially when Mr Wu gets in on the act. The show puts the Wild back in Wild West, with this three-season tale of its borderline-lawless township, replete with all your other favourite swears too. Ian McShane’s performance as Al Swearengen (note the name) is worth the price of admission/box set alone, but as far as naughty language is concerned the MVP award goes to Calamity Jane.

Gratuitous Sex & Nudity

Perhaps most controversially of all, Game of Thrones is known for not being shy of a breast of two. Nor any other part of the human body for that matter. With no more Thrones until next year, many people are gonna be short of their weekly count of bare flesh on screen. But no fear, because it just so happens that there’s this thing called pornography. Problem solved.