What to watch now that Season 5 of Game of Thrones has ended

First thing's first, Game of Thrones fans. There are NO spoilers in this piece. So rest easy for now. I've just finished the last episode and won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't gotten to it yet or plans on watching the series from the start. But there's a bigger crisis looming. How are we going to escape the gravitational pull of that massive black hole that's eating away at our television programming options? Now that Season 5 has come to a climatic end, our viewing of “Winter” will be the last taste of GoT until further notice. Let's talk about that impending lag time between seasons. What are we going to watch now that we can't follow the plights of Tyrion Lannister and Arya Stark for another year? Que the music, and read on. We'll be going through this rough patch together.

My strategy for surviving the GoT black hole is pretty straight forward. I'm going to search for another show like Brienne of Tarth searching for the Stark sisters! Times like these are hard, yes, much like the downtimes following bad break-ups. That next thing that you start watching will be your rebound to get you through the todays and tomorrows until the television Cupid lets loose another love arrow into your backside and changes everything. Take my word for it. Game of Thrones was my rebound at one time, until Episode 3 “Lord Snow” won me over completely in the first season. It's been an on and off again love affair ever since.

Now, George RR Martin can't write the books fast enough for me. HBO's David Benioff and DB Weiss' can't churn-out their television adaptation of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels without any of Martin's source material to play with. I find myself in television Purgatory. Plenty of crappy reality television to ignore and stupidly mind-numbing shows like Discovery's HowStuffWorks to contemplate commiting television-watching suicide to – between equal parts of annoying content mixed with annoying ads – boasting annoying people pimping annoying products from annoying companies. It feels like I'm doomed to eternally flip through a couple hundred mundane channels in Hell.

Just sayin'

I typically don't write about television, and it feels a bit weird writing like I'm some sort of clinical TV junky or GoT groupie. Isn't denial one of the symptoms to watch out for? Anyway, I do watch a good deal of movies, but hardly any TV. When I do watch programming that was born for viewing on the old idiot box, I love to watch a good series, back-to-back episodes whenever possible, without commercials and excessive network censorship. I stream nearly everything down dirty and raw from sites like Solarmovie.is. For free.

Let this be a starting place for you, if you're looking for a new TV-viewing rebound until George RR Martin sluggishly releases his next book installment, “The Winds of Winter.” We've got until April of 2016 until HBO will be airing a finale Season 6. Time will fly only if we're having fun. So, while there's no accounting for taste, let me offer up a shortlist of television series for you to indulge in until GoT comes marching back into our lives like Stannis Baratheon. These are rebounds and TV love affairs I've had over the past two or three years. No, they aren't all in the same league as GoT, and none of them are in the fantasy/drama realm. But maybe along with your own exploration on streaming sites, commingled with recommendations from friends, you might just pick up a series or two or three to help you during the rough patch ahead. Winter is coming.

Crime drama

Breaking Bad. It's only fitting that I begin with the series I loved the most. After blazing through five seasons of the misadventures of Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), Imoped around lost and wounded without a television purpose in life until that wonderful rebound, Game of Thrones, came along.

If you haven't watched Breaking Bad and don't mind a little violence and gore that comes in the package, check it out. If the very first scene of Episode 1 doesn't get you hooked, then the series isn't for you. That's all that needs to be said. But do try it. If you've sat throughsome of the uncensored gore and nudity featured in GoT, you can hack it.

Comedy

I highly recommend two comedy series. Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bored to Death, both also HBO productions. For me, prime examples of reverent comedy. With Curb you get Seinfeld co-creator Larry David playing himself in his hilariously dysfunctional relationship with his wife and everyone around him.

In Bored to Death, you get brilliant performances from actors Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson, and Zach Galifianakis. Schwartzman plays a stoner detective who gets his clients from Craigslist. The series is a terribly short, two-season wonder, but coupled with Curb Your Enthusiasm's eight seasons, you'll have plenty tears of laughter to drown out the tears of misery you'll be shedding awaiting GoT's return.

Horror

A rebound can be scary enough. With FX's American Horror Story, you get some great storytelling and brilliant acting by the entire cast, especially from Jessica Lange. There are currently four seasons and a fifth one in-the-making. Like Game of Thrones, this series is truly a hybrid of two genres, and it's the dynamic tension in the characters' relationships with one another that really makes the show great for me in Season 1. Interestingly, each season is a mini series unto itself. You'll find some of the main actors from the first season appearing in different roles later, and familiar faces like Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett playing starring roles in Seasons 3 and 4. But the common bond holding it all together has been Lange, although she reportedly will not be returning for a Season 5. At least check out Season 1, “Murder House”. The rest you can watch non-sequentially or not at all.

Even more crime drama

FX produced another winner with Fargo. As you may have guessed, it's based on the cult classic movie by the same name directed by the Coen brothers. It's got Billy Bob Thornton playing the bad guy.

Isn't that enough? Check it out. Then check out another HBO romance of mine, True Detective, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. What's not to love about these two guys? Ever since McConaughey started slimming-down in recent roles like he was running for Mr Skin N' Bones USA, it's as though the acting chops that were there hidden underneath a cheesy romantic comedy lead have suddenly bubbled to the surface in a geyser of repression. So far, I'm hooked. I'm only two episodes in and am enjoying it like any rebound that gets me through the dark days. But there are only six episodes left. And I'm sweating the rebound search to come.

It's your turn. Help a brother out. Help us all. Game of Thrones is on hiatus, and the White Walkers threaten to take control of our programming once more. There's no dragon glass within sight. Let's open the gates of the TV wall between you and me. Share your mini series recommendations in the comments. Because what's happening in Westeros will have to wait.