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

In the UK, Game Of Thrones aired on Sky Atlantic, so it's not at all surprising that the premium subscription channel would want their own version of the show that was their biggest audience draw. In 2018, with Thrones soon to end, Sky appeared to find their answer with Britannia.

Created by Jez Butterworth, one of Britain's most acclaimed playwrights who also had a hand in blockbusters from Edge Of Tomorrow to Spectre, Britannia is a grandiose piece of sex, swords and sorcery historical fantasy set against the backdrop of the Roman invasion of Britain.

The Game Of Thrones quotient in the cast is filled by David Bradley and Mackenzie Crook as druids, although the focus is on David Morrissey, maintaining his scenery chomping magnificent bastardy from The Walking Dead as the conquering Roman general.

Britannia is full of political maneuvering from characters with a Malcolm Tucker-ish attitude to polite debate and language, alongside a Ramsay Bolton-level of appreciation for flaying and dismemberment. Mixing earthy blood and guts with the odd bid of portentous black magic, it is superficially a perfect match for the Thrones audience.

Nevertheless, viewers looking for more of the same emerged confused by this hallucinogenic mushroom-loving series' trippy style and bonkers tone which occasionally borders on full-on farce.

Britannia opened with strong audience figures, but they plummeted through its first season. This led to Sky's co-financers at Amazon dropping out of the show's production. It returned to Sky anyway for a second season in 2019 where its grandiose, slightly camp style seemed to find a more niche audience of its own. A third season has been commissioned, giving Britannia a further chance to carve out its own weird place in the TV landscape.