TV Outliers: Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad... Grey's Anatomy?
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Game of Thrones returns for its seventh season on July 16th. No matter how the series fares as it traverses further and further away from the original source material, HBO's powerhouse fantasy vehicle is already noteworthy due to its rather rare mix of popularity and acclaim. IMDB data pulled from the Open Movie Database shows that Thrones can only be matched by Breaking Bad when it comes to earning a massive number of user ratings plus a stellar overall grade:
The longevity of Game of Thrones is particularly noteworthy. The show will roll past sixty hours of total runtime this season, and while the war for the Seven Kingdoms is still raging on, the show itself is gently coasting into a class of its own. No series has managed to maintain such a high IMDB rating after cranking out so many hours of TV:
IMDB ratings aside, Game of Thrones has also been rewarded with critical attention. Peter Dinklage picked up Best Supporting Actor at the 2012 Golden Globes, and Thrones has been nominated many, many times in the years since.
However, when looking further at the post-2000 TV shows to win at least one Golden Globe, there is an interesting outlier in the mix:
Did you catch it arrive in 2005? Grey's Anatomy stands apart as a TV black swan: a Golden Globes award winner that has manufactured enough medical drama to last 14 seasons and over 200 hours of episodes. The show that launched the Shonda Rhimes empire will likely never be mentioned in any discussion of "prestige" TV, but its accomplishments merit a TV outlier status akin to Thrones or Breaking Bad.
Big props to Meredith, McDreamy, et al.
P.S. Find all code used in analysis here