TV Madness 2017: Vikings and Poldark kick off Round Three

We’ve made it now to the top eight of our TV Madness 2017 Tournament, and what we’ve seen to date are battles all across the board. We’ve seen some close showdowns, some blowouts, and some with lead changes. What’s great about Vikings and Poldark starting off the third round is that they’re both battle-tested. Both shows were in some tight battles in Round Two, and there were moments where they were each trailing the show they eventually beat. They were able to rally near the end of their voting period, and this gets them to a position where they are going to have an opportunity to make it to our final four.

As we often like to do in these showdowns, let’s profile the two contenders and how they’ve gotten to this point.

Vikings (#4 seed) – First, the History series had to take down a pesky opponent in NCIS: Los Angeles in the first round; then, they saw that Supergirl was willing to put up quite a fight after upsetting Game of Thrones in the first round. The show’s done a good job of getting consistent voting throughout the week, and not just in the day or two following the polls opening. This is an even bigger achievement when you consider that the show is not even airing yet, and probably won’t for a couple more months.

Poldark (#2 seed) – In looking at the Aidan Turner series, meanwhile, you’ve got another example of a following that is voting hard despite the show not being on the air at the moment. We did expect to see it fare pretty strongly given its performance in past polls, and it proved itself worthy here of topping first Blue Bloods, and then Bones after that. The two shows did briefly pose a threat to the show, but eventually Poldark pulled away in both instances.

One of the common threads between these two shows is that they combine historical drama and escapism. Even though we’re not sure you as a viewer would want to be injected into either era, they both excel at taking you out of your everyday world, even if it’s just for one hour a week. That’s one of the reasons for the passion around them.

Now, we turn this over to you! You can still vote every day between now and March 25, which is when the final four showdowns will begin. Unlimited voting is allowed, but you may need to clear your cache or use different browsers / devices to have it happen. You may also need to click to view the non-AMP version of the page at the bottom of the article if you’re viewing this on mobile.

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