Right now you’d be in your arm chair, a mug of beer in tow, watching the newest installment of HBO’s GAME OF THRONES. Unfortunately, you won’t be doing that this Sunday night.

GAME OF THRONES’ fourth season was probably its best yet, which is an impressive statement, since the first three seasons were essentially a bad break (or a BREAKING BAD) away from being the best show on TV (though arguments can be made for FRINGE, COMMUNITY, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, JUSTIFIED, THE WALKING DEAD, PARKS AND RECREATION and LOUIE within that time).

But after last season’s incredible finale, “The Children,” which may have been its best yet (and it still elicits massive doses of controversy, because internet), we’re left without the sprawling clans of Westeros and beyond fighting for power and meaningless titles on our TV sets until next March. That’s a long damn time. What the hell are we supposed to do until then? I’m not going to suggest going outside or watching the World Cup or even reading George R. R. Martin’s A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE novels, because no shit. Of course, none of my other recommendations are going to be insightful or clever either.

More than ever, people want to be apart of the discussion, they don’t want to be the only one not watching a show. This year that show has been alternately TRUE DETECTIVE, GAME OF THRONES and ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. What’s the next obsession? Each of my following suggestions are ranked by their potential to be the next big thing.

Before I begin, I’ll offer the following advice: watch anything but CROSSBONES and DEFIANCE. I feel like this goes without saying. Watch BLACK SAILS instead if you crave pirates, because it’s STARZ’s replacement for SPARTACUS (though it’s not that good). Watch DOMINION instead of DEFIANCE if you want SyFy in your life, because that has Anthony Stewart Head in it.

10. Go see OBVIOUS CHILD

I haven’t seen the movie, but everyone I’ve talked to has said how amazing Jenny Slate is in it, and how powerful/funny/difficult a movie it is. You know Jenny Slate as Mona-Lisa in PARKS & RECREATION, also known as the worst (and simultaneously the best), and I’m tickled that this movie puts her on the dramatic map. There isn’t a movie out right now that I’m more intrigued to see. I’m guessing it’s worth the extra effort to find it.

Water Cooler Factor: 1/10. You’ll be the cool kid talking about a movie nobody’s seen, which is worth something. Unless you’re an LA hipster, I doubt OBVIOUS CHILD will make a dent in the theaters, unfortunately.

9. Catch up on ORPHAN BLACK

If you’re not watching BBC’s ORPHAN BLACK, you’re not doing it correctly. While the second season wasn’t as mindblowing or fresh as the first season, it was still the best show on TV that isn’t GAME OF THRONES (or HANNIBAL). Then last night’s season finale happened, and “Holy shit” was all I could utter after nearly every scene. It truly was a game changer; the finale changes EVERYTHING, and I’m not sure into what. Season 3 will be a complete mystery, but it promises to be no less compelling. It’s time to get onboard and learn why Tatiana Maslany really is everything.

Water Cooler Factor: 4/10. The season is over, so a lot of the impetus is gone for people to talk about it. By next year it’ll be on SHERLOCK levels, however.

8. Finally check out Showtime’s PENNY DREADFUL

I wouldn’t say I was overwhelmed by the pilot, but since then John Logan and Sam Mendes’ highly stylized, quite screwed up and grotesque take on classic gothic horror has grown into something bewitching.

I wouldn’t say it’s great, though it’s filled with great performances. Namely, the show has given an excuse for Eva Green to go absolutely bonkers, and that’s something the world has wanted/needed/craved since CASINO ROYALE. She’s deserving of at least a nomination at all of the award shows for her alluring, batshit crazy portrayal of Vanessa Ives, one of the few characters on the show that isn’t lifted directly from literature (or if it is, it’s over my head). We’ve seen way too many seances in film and TV, but Eva Green’s possessed Vanessa is the moment that secured my viewership until the show ends.

Plus, Timothy Dalton further cements his scene crunching ability in a late career renaissance I adore, and you can see Josh Hartnett’s ass and Billie Piper’s boobs. I’m an episode behind going into tonight’s episode (“Possession”), so this is one on the list that I’ll definitely be doing.

Water Cooler Factor: 5/10. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot more people would’ve been watching PENNY DREADFUL if not for GAME OF THRONES. Now that the latter is done, there’s still some time for PENNY DREADFUL to get into the national discussion. Unfortunately, after tonight’s episode, there’s only one week till the finale. Considering Showtime has already optioned a second season, it’s another good one to get ahead of the game for next year.

7. Get onboard BBC’s next buzzy show, INTRUDERS

All I know about BBC’s INTRUDERS, except that it’s premiering this summer and stars The Master himself, John Simm, is what I gleaned from this promo:

And that’s all I need/care to know to watch it.

Water Cooler Factor: 6/10. Looks great, but in a LUTHER/IN THE FLESH kind of way, where only the in BBC crowd watches and loves it.

5. Figure out what the hell RECTIFY is about

I’ll be honest, I don’t know. But this Sundance Channel show is apparently brilliant.

EW raves about it. It’s “mesmerizing.” “Stop Everything and Go Watch Rectify.”

It certainly doesn’t sound for everyone, considering it’s referred to as subtle and quiet drama, its whodunnit beside the point. Vulture calls it “christian art.” I don’t know what that means, but I’m tantalized, especially when it’s hailed as the successor to MAD MEN.

Water Cooler Factor: 7/10. Critics and outlets are going mad for RECTIFY. Will the people follow? I kind of doubt it, based on the themes at work in RECTIFY, but I’ve bumped several shows on my list in order to start season 1 and catch up on season 2 before it ends.

4. Check out STARZ’s OUTLANDER

OUTLANDER wants to be the next GAME OF THRONES, minus the dragons (as far as I know). It’s from a best selling book series, and is a time traveling romance to Scotland, being brought to the screen by Ronald D. Moore, who rules (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA). I think this one could be huge, judging by the eighth book’s firm place on top of the NYT Best Seller’s List, and its legion of fans.

OUTLANDER premieres August 9th.

Water Cooler Factor: 8/10. It might be too dreamy and historical to catch on like wildfire, but then again, we live in an age when DOWNTON ABBEY is one of the most talked about shows.

3. FX’s THE STRAIN is the next THE WALKING DEAD/AMERICAN HORROR STORY

Based on a popular book series, check. Awesome pedigree (Guillermo del Toro), check. A new, dark take on vampires, check.

From what little we’ve seen of THE STRAIN, it looks fucked up and cool. We might all be tired of vampires, but I’m pretty sure del Toro has something different up his sleeves with this.

It’s a coming July 13th.

Water Cooler Factor: 8.5/10. When horror shows find an audience, they explode, and with AHS and TWD off the air, The Strain should fill that void. It also helps that I expect it to be fairly excellent. Bonus half point because…IT HAS SEAN ASTIN IN IT!

2. Watch HBO’s Newest Show: THE LEFTOVERS

There’s little doubt in my mind that HBO will keep the hits coming, and dominate the national pop culture discussion again, after dominating this calendar year with TRUE DETECTIVE and GOT. I don’t think it’ll be the last season of TRUE BLOOD we’ll be talking about, however. That, like DEXTER before it, is ending too late, and is really just something we’re all watching out of due diligence more than anything else.

Next Sunday, June 29th we get to see THE LEFTOVERS, the show I believe will be the next buzzy show that will get spoiled for us minutes after its episodes air. What if 2% of the world’s population mysteriously disappeared? It certainly has LOST-like potential, which sounds like a dirty word these days, but I still cling to that as a compliment. It also could very well be like UNDER THE DOME, an inconsistent show I hate-watch. Either way, I’m quite curious to check it out.

Water Cooler Factor: 9/10. Pretty positive this is the one to take the mantle.

1. Watch these summer movies: DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and SNOWPIERCER.

Movies have a very low shelf life in terms of taking over the discussion, since every week there’s a new blockbuster to watch. So far 2014’s had a pretty good track record, though we’re about to hit a bit of a lull until DOTPOTA comes out, which is an acronym I’ll avoid using in the future.

DAWN and GUARDIANS are my two most anticipated films left this summer, and probably this year, though I’m not bothering to check that. They’re also the only two I’d predict that could even touch CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER in terms of quality.

SNOWPIERCER should be incredible as long as the Weinstein’s don’t ruin it. It’s based on an acclaimed French graphic novel, it stars Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, Octavia Spencer, Alison Pill and comes from visionary director Joon-ho Bong. Peep it:

It’s a smaller film, but it shouldn’t be, based on that trailer and who’s involved. We will get to see a director’s cut, but the film will no longer get a wide release. The world sucks sometimes.

Water Cooler Factor: 10/10. Maybe not for SNOWPIERCER, but DAWN and GUARDIANS are the two biggest movies yet to come out so far, mark my words. Fuck Transformers.

OTHERS: Halt and Catch Fire, AMC. The Knick, STARZ. The Last Ship & Legends, TNT. The Quest, CBS.

Showtime, as has become its penchant, has released the pilot of PENNY DREADFUL for all to see, a couple weeks in advance of its premiere date (the show airs Sundays at 9 PM, beginning on May 11^th). The following analysis contains A BOATLOAD OF SPOILERS FOR THE PILOT, so consider yourself warned, as we delve into the demimonde, the place in the shadows, a world inbetween what we see and what we fear, or the setting in which much of PENNY DREADFUL takes place.

PENNY DREADFUL is dripping with pedigree. The series is created by John Logan, the screenwriter of THE AVIATOR, GLADIATOR, THE LAST SAMURAI, HUGO and SKYFALL, with Sam Mendes (SKYFALL, AMERICAN BEAUTY) on board to produce. The pilot and several subsequent episodes are directed by J.A. Bayona (THE IMPOSSIBLE, THE ORPHANAGE and will be tackling WORLD WAR Z 2). And the material that Logan and company are plumbing is even more star-studded, as PENNY DREADFUL seeks to be a dark mishmash of all the great gothic horror literature. Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.” Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”  All these and more have been referenced by Logan and others when news of the project materialized, all likely to be adapted for the bloody, gruesome small screen in some manner.

It’s been so mysterious thus far…but now that the pilot is available, we can begin to see what Logan and company have in store for us.

The horror and genre fan in me loves it…but it all kind of seems familiar, stale, been there-done that. NBC already has/had a DRACULA show. There’s VAMPIRE DIARIES, THE ORIGINALS, THE STRAIN. The American BEING HUMAN just ended, but the British one is still going. Of course, there’s more going on than just vampires in PENNY DREADFUL, and none of those shows might not be done as well or as purdy and stylized as Showtime’s dreary tone. After watching the first episode, this is ONCE UPON A TIME with gothic literature, gifted with an AMERICAN HORROR STORY like vibe where sex and blood is par for the course. This is Alan Moore’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”

I was ready to slam this pilot, or at the very least, extoll skepticism that the show will hold my interest, but I realize it already has, thanks to all my speculation about the characters and what’s to come.

Part of the mystery (or the only thing that had me captivated) in the opening episode is figuring out who is who in the convoluted tapestry that John Logan is weaving. The character’s names, before the pilot aired, appeared innocuous, all-new, and not especially linked to the books Logan kept name-dropping in interviews (save Dorian Gray). Was it a ploy to keep guys like me off the trail? Or are the monsters and the heroes going to be bit players, or side characters to the action; is this going to be AGENTS OF H.O.R.R.O.R., creating brand new characters in a well-known world? It appears that it’ll be a little bit of everything, as it’s clear that there are more to these characters than meets the eye, and several are no longer a secret.

Josh Hartnett plays Ethan Chandler (any time I see the name Chandler, I assume it’s a reference to Raymond Chandler), a con man, an actor, who poses as a swashbuckling, roguish cowboy who survived Custer’s Last Stand, using his tall tale to swindle the charmed Brits. The fact that he uses the term tall tale seems to hint that his true identity may be found in one of them. He certainly doesn’t seem like Paul Bunyan, though Hartnett could totally pull off Babe the Blue Ox. Is he Davy Crockett? Johnny Appleseed? Pecos Bill? Or is he a famous cowboy, a Buffalo Bill? Wild Bill Hickok? Billy the Kid? Another cowboy named Bill? Vanessa Ives claims that there’s more to him than he puts out there.

Ethan is our entry to the story, as he’s approached by Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) to help her and her employer (Malcolm) with some “night work” (the name of the pilot), which naturally involves killing monsters.

Who exactly is Vanessa Ives? She’s seen worshipping to a cross several times, having an unhealthy relationship with spiders, whether she summons them, or they just hate her prayers. She’s a fortune teller, a spiritualist, the kind of lady who will totally tell you to pick a Tarot card from her deck. I got nothing on her right now, though I’m sure it’s staring me right in the face. Anyone have any theories? I want her to be the crazy gypsy woman from WOLF MAN, but that isn’t right.

Timothy Dalton is great as Sir Malcolm, a wealthy explorer searching for his daughter, who’s been kidnapped by blood-cursed beasts. Can we call a spade a spade here and just admit they’re vampires? It’s unfortunate that vampires are the biggest focus in the first episode, since we’re about running out of new ground in that particular mythos. It’s clear, even before we learn that Malcolm’s full name is Malcolm Murray, that his daughter is Mina, or Mina Murray/Harker, Dracula’s biggest infatuation. More interesting is that they present Sir Malcolm as an explorer of Africa who’s lived untold adventures and happened upon a myriad of secrets. He certainly has shades of H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain, the star of “King Solomon’s Mines,” a book that is credited with creating the “Lost World” genre. Quatermain is the godfather of Indiana Jones and whatever Noah Wyle played on TNT.

Considering Malcolm has a servant named Sembene, who’s clearly from “the dark continent,” (their words, not mine), it’s likely Sembene was found/rescued during his travels in Africa. I’m not overly familiar with Haggard’s novels, but I’m sure they’re filled with potential characters he may be (Umslopogaas? Ignosi?). Ousmane Sembene is a notable African filmmaker from the independence era, which certainly doesn’t seem like an accident, and indicates that Malcolm/Quatermain perhaps freed Sembene from slavery.

After Malcolm, Vanessa and Ethan traipse around, stumbling upon a vampire nest, they bring a body to a doctor, a man singularly consumed with life and death. It doesn’t take a genius to realize we’re seeing a young Dr. Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), even before his identity is revealed (you’ll be screaming at the screen long before he says his name). He isn’t interested in any other avenue of science, blinded by arrogance and purpose. Malcolm wants to hire the Doctor for their quest to find Mina, but even though Victor’s clearly in need of the money, he doesn’t want to dilly dally with anything else but his experiments.

Which happen to bear fruit by the end of the episode, as we see Logan and company’s version of the “It’s Alive!” scene, which is thankfully a lot different (and effective). In Mary Shelley’s classic novel, once Victor achieves his goal, he’s terrified of the demon he created, and runs away from the Monster. Then he realizes he must kill him, and consumed by madness, travels around the globe to try and catch him. The Monster, despite his ugly features, is an eloquent figure, abandoned by his father, and seeking a place in an unjust and mysterious universe, only wreaking terror and death because Victor kind of deserves it for being a self-absorbed ninny. In PENNY DREADFUL, the two wonder at each other…the Creature (Rory Kinnear) not particularly big or imposing, both of them touching the other’s face. There’s certainly sexual vibes going on (was he a lover of Victor’s before he died?).

In the waning moments of the pilot, Malcolm is greeted by the presence of his dear daughter, Mina (Olivia Llewellyn), who it appears, is no longer human. She’s been turned, which, while tragic news to Malcolm, is good news for us as an audience, because we don’t have to go through that storyline again. More interestingly, Malcolm and Vanessa have committed some transgression that led to Mina’s condition, a guilt that they’ll always have.

While the vampire stuff is mostly pat…Dr. Frankenstein unearths an interesting wrinkle, when he splits open a dead vamp’s exoskeleton, revealing hieroglyphics tattooed to the man’s skin. Malcolm and Vanessa go see a Mr. Lyle, an eccentric Egyptian scholar at the British Museum, who reveals that the tattoos indicate the man has a “blood curse,” and that the images come from the Book of the Dead. Of course it does. To the best of my knowledge there is no Mr. Lyle in any of the Universal Mummy films, but I do like that everything seems to come from Africa, and are related to one of Malcolm’s expeditions.

Oh, and because it wouldn’t be London in the 19^th century without him, it appears that Jack the Ripper is back, having butchered a woman into all kinds of pieces. Is Jack the Ripper a vampire, or something else (Dr. JACK-yll and Mr. Hyde)? Or is Jack just back from a holiday? Or is it Dracula/some vampire, doing the murders, and it just looks like Jack the Ripper? Considering how much blood was left at the scene of the crime, it certainly doesn’t feel like vampires.

So after one episode: we got vampires, Mina Murray with the promise of Dracula to come, some version of Jack the Ripper, Dr. Frankenstein and his “Creature” (not his Monster), and an Allan Quatermain stand-in. We haven’t even been introduced to Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), though he’s coming.

PENNY DREADFUL’s pilot wasn’t terrific, but it obviously had a ton of elements and seeds, and depending on how they’re teased out, and blossom over its first season, it may very well prove that vampires, monsters and the like aren’t so dead after all. Plus, we haven’t even met Billie Piper’s Brona Croft (an irish immigrant trying to escape her dark past), with even more puzzles to come.

STREAM THE PILOT NOW:

http://youtu.be/_GMZBirzYAY