‘Game of Thrones’ Mulls Ending with Two Shortened Seasons

Norman Weiss April 14, 2016, 9:17 pm

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Game of Thrones mulls ending with two shortened seasons

Season 6 could be the last with 10 episodes. David Benioff and Dan Weiss are considering ending after 73 episodes, a plan that has been in the works for a while. That would likely mean seven episodes for Season 7 and six episodes of Season 8. “I think we’re down to our final 13 episodes after this season. We’re heading into the final lap,” Benioff tells Variety. “That’s the guess, though nothing is yet set in stone, but that’s what we’re looking at.” Still, Variety says “those exact numbers were premature, given that the showrunners are now just beginning to outline their plans.” PLUS: Here’s your first look at the Bill Simmons-produced After the Thrones set, watch Sophie Turner unveil her Jon Snow impression, Emilia Clarke was “drunk and photoshopped” on Esquire’s cover, and Clarke tells Conan about her desire for more male nudity on the show.

Scandal’s Olivia Pope inspiration is a character in Kerry Washington’s HBO film Confirmation

As Scandal fans know, real-life crisis management Judy Smith worked for the elder President Bush. “The weirdest thing about having Judy be a character in the film was that when women were coming in to audition for Judy Smith, they were doing Olivia Pope,” says Washington. “And Judy is not like Olivia. Olivia is inspired by Judy, but Judy’s a much more quiet version and so it was really weird to watch people come into an audition room and do a version of what I do on television for that role.”

NFL season to kick off with a Super Bowl 50 rematch

The Carolina Panthers will play at the Denver Broncos in the first NFL game of the season on Thursday, Sept. 8 on NBC.

Stephen Colbert’s lack of a Super Bowl bump prompted Les Moonves to get him a showrunner

The Late Show’s post-Super Bowl episode was a success with 21 million viewers, but that special show barely made a dent in his ratings. So CBS boss Moonves decided that The Late Show needed a “head coach,” the NY Times reports. And that’s how he got CBS This Morning boss Chris Licht on board. PLUS: Colbert’s also been disappointing in social media.

TV’s death trend: Heterosexual white male characters seem to die the least

“Women of color, men of color, LGBTQ characters and white female characters have been killed off left and right,” says Maureen Ryan. “None of that’s new for TV, but the sheer volume of these deaths — a number of which were shocking for the wrong reasons — has been notable. When considered as a whole, it’s difficult for the suspicion that these characters are expendable not to harden into belief.”