The eight season return of 'Game of Thrones' made history this weekend.
Premiering over in the states on HBO Sunday night (and at 2am on Sky Atlantic here for all you night owls), the final season return of 'Game of Thrones' drew in a record number of viewers.
According to Variety, the season premiere of the eighth and final return of the hit fantasy series saw 17.4 million viewers tune in. That's a lot of people. However, this is probably nowhere near the actual final number of people who watched 'Winterfell'. There are also those who recorded the episode, and watched it at a later date. And of course, the figures don't count those who streamed the episode illegally, or perhaps those who threw a "Thrones party" together. The final figure could end up being much more.
Who should sit on the Iron Throne?
If you compared season eight's premiere with that of season seven, it's clear that nearly two years of a TV break has meant plenty of people have managed to see what all of the fuss was about in the meantime. The season seven premiere 'Dragonstone' opened with a massive 16.1 million viewers in 2017. That season also averaged 32.8 million over the whole course of its 10-episode run.
It's important to bear in mind though that this is purely the American audience, and doesn't take into account us over here who use Sky Atlantic to watch the show. And we'll likely never get final figures due to piracy. It goes to show though - 'Game of Thrones' is here to take over our lives for the next five weeks, no matter how much we try to avoid it.
In case you've missed anything 'Game of Thrones' related recently, head over to our page dedicated to the most popular TV show on the planet here. And you can read our review of episode one here too.
Don't miss 'The Thrones Show', our new weekly 'Game of Thrones' review show where we give our reaction and analysis after each episode of the final season.
