After a very strange season of ups and downs for both the characters and viewers, Girls‘ second season ended on an upbeat note for (almost) all involved.  However, with Christopher Abbott, who plays the suddenly-rich-thanks-to-an-app Charlie, leaving the show just as filming on season three begins, that puts one of the finale’s major storylines in a quandary.  Though Abbott’s official statement is that he is leaving to pursue work on other projects, the rumor is that he and the polarizing HBO show’s creator, Lena Dunham, fought over creative differences.  Hit the jump for the specifics, and what it could mean for the third season (Note: Season Two spoilers).

As if you didn’t see this one coming: HBO has renewed the immensely popular fantasy series Game of Thrones for a fourth season.  The pickup comes just a couple of days after the show’s season three premiere, which pulled in a record-breaking 4.4 million viewers.  The renewal was essentially a foregone conclusion, as Game of Thrones has been a massively profitable series for HBO.  Not only does the show pull in great ratings, but its DVDs and Blu-rays—an incredibly lucrative market for the pay cable network—are record sellers.  Hit the jump for more.

Before tonight’s season premiere of Game of Thrones, HBO aired a brief new trailer for Steven Soderbergh‘s ultimate film before retirement, Behind the Candelabra.  The film stars Michael Douglas as the famous musician Liberace and Matt Damon as his lover Scott Thorson.  The story centers on the tempestuous relationship between the two throughout their secretive five-year love affair that began in 1977.  Like the teaser trailer, the tone is fun, but this time we’re getting our first footage from the picture, and I like the look of the flamboyant hair and costumes.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  Behind the Candelabra airs on HBO on May 26th at 9/8c.

The premiere dates for new seasons of a couple of popular TV series have been announced.  First up, HBO’s True Blood will kick off season six on Sunday, June 16th.  The new season is the show’s first without creator/ex-showunner Alan Ball at the helm, and is also the show’s first season to have just 10 episodes.  All previous seasons of the show have been made up of 12 episodes, but the order was shortened this year.  Co-executive producer Mark Hudis took over as the new showrunner at the beginning of season six, but in the middle of production he himself was replaced by writer/producer Brian Buckner.  Hit the jump for more, including the return date of AMC’s resurrected drama series The Killing.

With the season premiere of Game of Thrones less than a week away, HBO has continued their marketing onslaught by releasing a new promo and a new featurette.  The promo once again reminds us that the dragons are going to be a big factor in the new season, and as for the featurette, I highly encourage you to watch it.  It goes into detail about creating the world of the Wildlings, and the amount of effort and detail that makes the world come alive.  You probably won’t notice these details when watching the show, but subconsciously they make the world believable.  This is the case for all of the settings on the series, but showing the technical work in creating the life beyond The Wall is a fine example of how the show’s technical departments work their magic.  The featurette also devotes time to new character Mance Rayder (played by the great Ciaran Hinds).

Hit the jump to check out the promo and the featurette.  Also, be sure to check out Allison’s recap of Season Two.  Game of Thrones premieres on March 31st at 9/8c.

HBO’s juggernaut drama Game of Thrones returns next week with its third season, and for the first time Collider will be doing weekly recaps of all of the action.  In the meantime, with all of the many, many storylines and innumerable characters swirling around in Westeros (and, for the moment, Qarth) why not take a look back at where things left off last year, with a comprehensive list of who is where, and where they will be heading.  No spoilers for the upcoming season, but obviously if you haven’t finished Season Two then in the name of the Seven go no further!  Hit the jump for why you never, ever want to hear three horn blasts on the Wall.

With Game of Thrones returning for Season 3 on March 31^st, the Academy of Television hosted an evening to celebrate the cast and creative team, and the huge success of the popular HBO drama series, while giving a glimpse into what fans can expect as the story continues.  Collider was there to cover and attend the event, and we’ve compiled the highlights of what the behind-the-scenes talent had to say during the Q&A.

During the discussion, executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss, along with author George R.R. Martin, talked about how this book series came to be a TV show at HBO, having to re-shoot 90% of the pilot, making sure that Martin gets his cameo this season, the biggest difficulties in shooting with different first units on different episodes in different countries on a daily basis, who the funniest actors on set are, whether the dire wolves are real or CG, the most technically difficult episode to shoot, whether getting to know the actors makes them feel guilty about killing characters off, the process for changing what is in the books, how there will be a few different people sitting on the Iron Throne before the series is done, and why Season 3 is the one they were most excited about doing.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

HBO has released the first trailer for brilliant satirist Christopher Guest’s newest television venture, Family Tree.  Family Tree stars Chris O’Dowd as a man who starts to track down his real family, and follows him on that crazy journey.  The trailer gives a quick look into this journey, with O’Dowd’s character discovering his family’s military past, and eventually making it out to Los Angeles.  O’Dowd was last seen in Judd Apatow’s This is 40, but also made big splashes stateside with Bridesmaids and his recurring appearances on Girls.

I’m glad that O’Dowd is getting the chance to lead his own comedy series, and with help from Guest mainstays like Michael McKean, Ed Begley Jr., and Fred Willard, Family Tree could be a really solid new HBO comedy.  With a straight-to-series eight-episode pick-up for the first season, it looks like HBO is starting to hone in on creating a fantastic roster of innovative and hilarious comedy shows that could rival any of the big networks.  Hit the jump to watch the trailer.

HBO’s political comedy Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as hapless Vice President Selina Meyer, was one of last year’s best and most overlooked series.  From the creators of the masterful British series The Thick Of It, Veep has that show’s same perceptive understanding of the chaotic ineptitude of politics, presented with acid wit.  The Office of the Vice President should be the second-highest in the land, but in Veep we see it instead as a marginalized den of the bewildered.  One of the great, subtle running gags of the series is Selina Meyer asking her secretary if the President has called, with the reply always being a resounding “no.” (that dynamic was also played up in the first teaser for this upcoming season)  The new spot shows more of Selina’s fight to establish some kind of legacy in the hostile environs of Washington, presumably without much luck.  Hit the jump for the trailer.

The highly anticipated return of HBO’s Game of Thrones is nigh, and the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly is celebrating all things GoT to mark the occasion.  The magazine has revealed a few character portraits featuring Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Richard Madden, and Rose Leslie, in addition to this week’s Jon Snow/Dany-fronted cover.  It’s great to see the characters back in action, and Leslie’s Ygritte looks to have cleaned up rather nicely.

Hit the jump to take a look at the images, and click here to watch the most recent trailer.  Season three of Game of Thrones begins on Sunday, March 31st at 9pm.

Oh my.  I’m not sure what to do with this season of Girls.  It’s been all over the place — from a strong, legitimately funny start to some strange, meditative episodes (Hannah and her affair with the doctor, Jessa’s trip back home), to the odd and boring (“On All Fours”).  This season has become less of a commentary on girls, these or otherwise, and more of a ritualistic humiliation that has zapped one character off of the map completely (please come back, Jessa, please!)  As for this week, the best I can do with “On All Fours” is that it seemed to be about returning to your base instincts and coming to terms with who you really are.  Or something.  Hit the jump for why “I’ve been known to dabble in the Macintosh arts.”

HBO’s prohibition-era drama Boardwalk Empire, which stars Steve Buscemi as bootlegging Atlantic City gangster Nucky Thompson, ended its uneven third season this past fall with a bloodbath of epic proportions, so it’s no surprise they’re already casting some new faces (even though all luckily of our heroes survived the fallout).

The Hurt Locker‘s Brian Geraghty is reported to have accepted a recurring role for the upcoming fourth season playing Loren Knox, and Prohibition agent with ulterior motives newly assigned to Atlantic City.  Ron Livingston (Band of Brothers) has also been cast in a series regular role as a wealthy out-of-town businessman who starts up a relationship with Gillian Darmody (Gretchen Mol).  For more on these casting choices (with minimal spoilers), hit the jump.

Parade’s End, a new five-part miniseries adaptation by Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) of Ford Maddox Ford’s novels, is everything viewers wanted from Downton Abbey‘s second season, but didn’t get.  Whereas Downton Abbey shunted the First World War to the side (and created it as a place where one could just jaunt home every weekend or whenever one felt like it),Parade’s End uses it as a centerpiece dramatically and emotionally.  The Edwardian period has regained a huge amount of popularity lately, mostly thanks to Downton, but even if you’re growing tired of costume dramas and staid portrayals of a bygone era of England, whose opulance is beyond anything we could imagine, don’t overlook Parade’s End.  It will absolutely not let you down.  Hit the jump for more about the adaptation, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), Rebecca Hall (The Town) and Adelaide Clemens (The Great Gatsby).

This just in:  we’ve got the details surrounding Mondo’s next big gallery show.  As you probably already know, we’re closing in on the one year anniversary of the Mondo Gallery’s opening, and—as expected—it appears that the Mondo guys have lined up something pretty damn awesome to celebrate that milestone.  Wanna know more?  Details after the jump, folks.

The first full trailer for season three of HBO’s Game of Thrones has been released online.  While I love the music for Game of Thrones and “Florence and the Machine,” the latter feels a bit out of place here, but who cares?! [Correction: the song is "Bones" by MS MR"]  Without giving away any spoilers from the books, we get glimpses of a flaming ship, a flaming sword, ranks upon ranks of well-trained soldiers in the desert and yes, a dragon in full flight!  I’m ecstatic to return to Westeros in about a month, how about you?

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The series stars Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Maisie Williams, Michelle Fairley, Emilia Clarke, Alfie Allen, Iain Glen, Kit Harington, Sophie Turner, Jack Gleeson, Aidan Gillen, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Richard Madden, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.  Game of Thrones returns March 31st.