'Game of Thrones' Gets Premiere Date

Winter came and went without a definite date for the return of Game of Thrones on HBO. That changed this week when the network announced a date for the premiere of the series' seventh season.

The announcement was made during a Facebook Live event that didn't quite go off as planned. After glitches and a bizarre video feed that forced viewers to watch ice melting for more than an hour, the date was, at last, revealed.

The series' seventh and next-to-last season will debut on July 16, 2017. That's considerably later than the usual spring-time season premiere. The show's producers claimed that they wanted to delay production this year so that the weather at the filming locations would better reflect the winter-time setting of the plot.

Season seven of GoT will also be shorter, at seven episodes, than those that have come before, which have all had ten episodes each. The eighth and final season is expected to consist of eight episodes.

In the coming season, things are likely to get chaotic in Westeros, as winter finally arrives and Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Cersei Lannister and just about everyone else struggle to gain control of the Iron Throne.