A few things are going to happen next year when the final season of Game of Thrones airs on HBO and various other global cable channels.

Firstly, stars Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Sophie Turner and more will be able to cut their hair, shave their beards and otherwise alter their appearances in ways they were forbidden to do during the eight-season run of the television show. Maybe they’ll go on a holiday. Who knows, the non-Westeros-set world is their oyster.

Secondly, we’ll finally find out who really will win the game of Thrones, and who will die. (Fans of the show know that these are the only two acceptable options.)

But thirdly, and most importantly, we the Game of Thrones-watching public will be transferred seamlessly from one piece of GOT-related content to another. Our Game of Thrones overlords, by which we mean the executives at HBO in charge of commissioning content, have approved five prequel television shows taking place in various eras and exploring various parts of the world of Kings Landing and beyond, all designed to satisfy our desire for continuous and never-ending Game of Thrones content for as long as we all shall live. 

Considering that the first series of Game of Thrones ran for eight seasons across about as many years, it’s not inconceivable that for the next half a century there will be some form of Game of Thrones content on your television. If you’re a superfan, you’re probably soothed by this knowledge. If you’re Westeros-agnostic then you have our sympathies.

The first of these five extra Game of Thrones series will be a prequel set thousands of years in the past and will star Naomi Watts as a “charismatic socialite hiding a dark secret.” Written by George R.R Martin, the author of the Game of Thrones book series and Jane Goldman, who penned the script for the Kingsman sequel, it will focus on a time period in Westeros’ history that bore witness to the longest and darkest winters the land had ever seen and heralded the arrival of the Others (wildlings, White Walkers, you know the drill) into Westeros.

Watts will star alongside Josh Whitehouse, the British actor best known for his turn as the sexy, floppy-haired Hugh Armitage on Poldark.

Hugh’s function on the show is as some serious eye candy for Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson), left abandoned by her sometimes-feckless husband Ross (Aidan Turner), the other gorgeous guy on Poldark. What’s a girl to do when there’s the Platonic ideal of a Romantic Hero – that’s Hugh, a man who we would describe as mostly cheekbones – staring at her with such doe-eyed intensity?

Poldark is Whitehouse’s biggest acting credit, though he has also been the face of Burberry and has a few upcoming movies to his name.

But Game of Thrones shouldn’t be too big of a departure for him. Both Poldark and Game of Thrones are about dastardly aristocrats looking to control their immediate surroundings, one particularly strong-willed redhead, more illegitimate heirs and secret pregnancies that you can poke a stick at and tonnes of gratuitous nudity.

It’s just that one of them is a realistic, grounded investigation of the machinations of power and the other one is Poldark. 

Images: Getty