10 TV Shows That So Badly Wanted To Be Game Of Thrones

Actually made simultaneously with Game Of Thrones, both shows' first seasons airing in spring and summer of 2011, Camelot is the only show on this list not rushed into production specifically looking to capture the Thrones audience. Instead it was a series that wanted to be Game Of Thrones in the sense that it went directly head-to-head to compete to find that audience and lost badly.

Chris Chibnall (now best known as the showrunner for Doctor Who) had been involved with the BBC on the early development of the show that became Merlin, but dropped out when the series went in a family-friendly direction.

In 2010, however, as Thrones also went into production at HBO, Chibnall reworked his dark, adult, political take on the King Arthur myth for Starz with the help of The Tudors creator Michael Hirst.

Camelot certainly had potential for its own rivals to the likes of Littlefinger and Cersei Lannister in Joseph Fiennes's Merlin, here reimagined as a Machiavellian, manipulative kingmaker, and Eva Green's ruthlessly ambitious, seductive take on Morgan le Fay.

But the rest of the show fell flat and felt lifeless compared to the richly developed world of Westeros, which transformed the TV landscape into something very different from when Camelot had begun production.

The series was cancelled as soon as its first season finished airing.

Camelot directors Jeremy Podeswa and Michelle MacLaren did go on to helm some of Game Of Thrones' classic episodes. Its King Arthur, Jamie Campbell Bower, however, was unlucky a second time when featuring in the ill-fated pilot for the Thrones spinoff Bloodmoon, which was not picked up.