When a show is as binge-worthy as Game of Thrones, the prospect of finishing a series and having to wait a year for the next one is enough to make you want to hurl yourself out of the Moon Door.
With that in mind, learning that the next and final season of - as Ian McShane famously referred to it - 'Tits and Dragons' won't hit our screens until 2019 is just too much to take.
However, while its release may be two years from the last instalment, HBO boss Casey Bloys says that there's a very good reason for the wait.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he said the delay was due to the increased length of episodes, the quality of the special effects & CGI, and the fact that showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are nothing short of perfectionists.
"Here's what I'll tell you: they take the time they need to do the show at its highest level of quality. As the show has gone on, it's gotten bigger - big battle scenes, big special effects," Bloys told the publication.
"These things take time. Here's the one thing I can assure you: Dan and Dave were not sitting around on a beach waiting to go back to work. They're perfectionists and this is the soonest it can come back at a level of quality that they are comfortable with."
The TV exec also spoke about the Game of Thrones prequels currently being worked on at HBO, saying 'they're moving along' but revealing little else.
"We have some really talented writers working on them," he explained. "The one thing I will tell you, which we talked about before, any sort of pilot-to-series [order], there's not going to be anything on our air for a least a year after Game of Thrones airs.
"We're not using the final season to launch a new show or anything like that. There's going to be a separation between the two. These are among the best writers working and I'm hopeful."
In an earlier interview with the same magazine, Bloys talked about his strategy to develop multiple prequels.
"You couldn't do this with a lot of shows," he said in July last year.
"In talking with the drama group here, and the nice thing is George has created an entire universe. The fact that there's enough material to even contemplate making different prequels is crazy when you think about it. George has all these histories he's thought about and that's one reason why the books are so good.
"The other reason, frankly, as I said, is the bar is so high. If you only developed one, everything would rest on that one shot. It's such a special show. I want to make sure that [any prequel] feels worthy. We have some amazing writers who want to take a shot at this. They're also looking at different times in the universe and all will have different feels. This increases our odds of finding one that's unique."
Featured Image Credit: HBOTopics: TV and Film, HBO, US Entertainment, Game of Thrones