The wait is almost over

'Game of Thrones’ and Princess Leia return.

By HANNAH BROWN
Updated: APRIL 20, 2016 17:05
‘Game of Thrones’ (photo credit: PR)
‘Game of Thrones’
(photo credit: PR)
If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, the wait is almost over. Season Six begins on April 25, and will be broadcast on Channel 16 at 4 a.m., exactly when it is being shown in the US. It will be available on YES VOD starting at 5 a.m.
YES has already stoked the GOT frenzy by devoting an entire channel (Channel 16) exclusively to the show for three weeks. It isn’t only in Israel that people have gone crazy for the ultra-violent fantasy show, though. In America, the show’s producers announced that President Barack Obama would get advance screeners of the new season, and a reporter filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get her hands on them, saying the public had a right to know. Needless to say, the White House did not release them.
Some of my GOT fan friends have tried to get me hooked on the show, and I have watched a few of the re-runs recently. The acting is excellent, the atmosphere and scenery are amazing and the special effects (those flying dragons and white-eyed zombies) are high quality. But while I can tune in to other shows that I haven’t been following and then get hooked, GOT leaves me cold, which is ironic since one of its catchphrases is “Winter is coming.”
If you’ve missed out on GOT up till now, here’s the scoop: it’s set in some alternative universe in what looks like medieval times, and features a bunch of very good actors (mostly British) in robes and furs plotting against each other, torturing each other and decapitating each other. They often take off those robes, too, and it turns out that trekking through the snowy hills and across the desert keeps them really toned. Some people speak languages called Dothraki and Valyrian. There are characters called High Sparrow and Grey Worm.
If you have any questions, just go to one of the approximately half a million websites devoted to the show.
If GOT is the most popular fantasy TV show, Star Wars is the greatest fantasy/sci-fi movie franchise. If you missed the latest movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in theaters, you can watch it on YES VOD starting on April 22.
The movie will definitely lose something on the small screen, since it was designed for huge theaters and was shot in 3D.
One aspect of the movie that received less attention than the special effects was the quality of the actors. Adam Driver, the breakout star from Girls, plays the key role of Kylo Ren. Harrison Ford is back, looking a bit weatherbeaten but still – although it may be an oxymoron – an unassuming movie star. It was hard to see Carrie Fisher reprise her role as Princess Leia without thinking of her one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, in which she talks about being part of such a phenomenon, especially how weird it was to have dolls modeled on her.
If you are interested in Carrie Fisher, then you can tune in to Postcards from the Edge on HOT Prime at April 23 at 11:50 a.m., which stars Meryl Streep as a postrehab B-movie actress and Shirley MacLaine as her flamboyant movie-star mother. What’s the Fisher connection? The movie was based on Fisher’s novel of the same name, and it is inspired by her life as the daughter of Debbie Reynolds.
You will learn more about the high-tech industry from the HBO series Silicon Valley, than you will from the business pages. The third season of the extremely funny saga about four guys who always seem as if they’re about to make their first billion will begin showing on YES VOD on April 26.
The first two seasons are currently available on YES VOD.
The second season of Fear the Walking Dead will start running on the AMC Channel here on May 16.
I got a sneak peek at it and if you like zombies, it is scary, as the characters head off on a yacht owned by the mysterious rich guy, Strand (Colman Domingo, who is starring in the upcoming movie Birth of a Nation, which is already generating buzz for the 2017 Oscars). Just don’t forget, it’s his boat and he makes the rules.