TV Madness: ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Hell on Wheels’ kick off our latest March feature

We’re in the month of March, and obviously this means one thing for many sports enthusiasts that are out there: The NCAA Tournament! Obviously we’re not covering that on CarterMatt (we’re a TV site, after all), but we wanted to replicate the feel somewhat for a fun series throughout the month of March with a news angle.

With that, the TV Madness series was born. We’re going to feature head-to-head competitions for many TV shows throughout the next few weeks, giving you the power to vote at your leisure for your favorite to advance to the next round. Every day we’ll feature a new showdown, and we’ve put in the image above all of the voting deadlines for the sake of making things clear. For example, you will be able to vote on any of the round 1 showdowns until March 10 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific time, and at that point we’ll close down the polls and move forward to the next round with the winners. Eventually, we shall crown a victor!

We chose the 16 shows taking part this year based on reader favorites here at the site, and we also wanted to give this a different angle than many other polls that are out there on other sites. With that, each day we’re either going to give you a refresher or some scoop / teasers on the shows specified, just so that you’re getting a little chunk of news while also voting for your favorites.

Now that we’ve gotten that lengthy intro out of the way, let’s move on to the first battle: “Game of Thrones” versus “Hell on Wheels”!

“Game of Thrones” (1) – It has to be thought of as the favorite at this particular point in time. It’s a show with an enormous following, just as it’s also a show that has garnered attention from many different award shows under the sun. It’s getting ready to start up season 6 in April, where it will jump ahead of the George R.R. Martin source material for the first time ever. As for whether or not they make Jon Snow fans happy, that’s still up in the air…

Given that this is a show HBO is calling the most successful program it has ever had in the history of the network, we’re not entirely sure how you classify this as anything other than the TV equivalent of a North Carolina or a Kentucky? It’s always going to be at the top of the ratings charts and in awards-show discussion.

“Hell on Wheels” (8) – Now, we turn to the Cinderella story … with the main difference that this Cinderella may be carrying a pistol. This Western is fittingly the little engine that could, the excellent show on Saturday night that is the equivalent of that college team that everyone knows is really good, but unfortunately ignores them before they pull off a big upset. This show is getting ready to kick off its final episodes later this summer, and will be doing so with a showdown between Cullen Bohannon and The Swede that has been years in the making.