• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 14, 2017

Is “Game of Thrones” the last great television show?

The question is not meant to suggest that everything else on what we now classify as TV (like SVOD, for example) somehow fails to measure up to the awesomeness that is “GOT.”

The new seventh season gets under way this coming Sunday night on HBO.

The arrival of a new flight of “GOT” episodes is such a momentous occasion that HBO feels no need to provide any of the new episodes to TV columnists in advance of their air dates.

A handful of journos based in the L.A. area were apparently invited, along with other honored guests, to a premiere screening this week at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. But everybody there was reportedly sworn to secrecy about what they saw.

Opinions may differ on the relative quality -- both good and bad -- of “GOT” or any other shows that are out there today.

One aspect of the current television era that everyone talks about is just the sheer number of scripted comedies and dramas currently available to watch or in the works.

When thinking about television content today, one word that occurs to me over and over again is “tonnage.” There’s just so much of it. As a result, new TV shows -- ones that have come along primarily in just the last few years  -- don’t have nearly the staying power, or the mass appeal, of  TV shows of old.

Generally speaking, there are no “talkers” anymore. In this context, “talker” is not Variety-speak for a TV talk show. It’s a word we used to bandy about at the newspaper where I once worked to refer to TV shows that “everybody” talked about. Based on that subjective criteria, such shows were deemed worthy of our attention in stories and columns.

“GOT” just might be the last lone exception to the no-more-talkers theory. It’s the one show that comes up again and again when people talk about what they’re watching now, or look forward to watching soon.

HBO may have felt that this show’s new season is so highly anticipated that it generates its own publicity, without help from the nation’s TV columnists.

Once in a while, HBO and other networks withhold shows from being previewed because of the potential for spoilers getting published that might ruin the experience of watching the show for the multitudes who have waited so long for the show to return.

“GOT” was last seen in June 2016. This summer’s seventh season will consist of just seven episodes -- a number that will come and go in the proverbial blink of an eye.

It's already been announced that the show intends to end in season eight, either next year or the year after.

With the end looming, it's widely expected (or at least rumored) that some of the show’s best-known characters are likely headed toward their deaths.

It's entirely possible that some of these deaths may occur as soon as this Sunday -- which is another reason for HBO to keep the lid on the season premiere, to the extent that it's possible to do so.

“GOT” is such a social-media phenomenon that it is best to watch it at its 9-10 p.m. (Eastern) air time on Sunday night. Afterward, it will be difficult to avoid the spoilers that will inevitably be posted everywhere within minutes of the show ending.

The view from here is that “GOT” is a very special TV show -- the kind of sensation that comes along only once in a generation or so, like “Seinfeld” or “The Sopranos.”

It first premiered in September 2010 -- not that long ago, really, but in the context of the fast-changing TV business, it may as well have been several lifetimes ago.

We may never see anything quite like it ever again.

The new season of “Game of Thrones” starts Sunday (July 16) at 9 p.m. Eastern on HBO.