‘Game of Thrones’ season 3 spoilers: Filming in Iceland (and as a whole) ends

There are some congratulations in order for the hard-working cast and crew of “Game of Thrones”: after four and a half months, four countries, countless extras, and difficult filming conditions (doesn’t all of this sound like what Phil Keoghan says at the end of “The Amazing Race”?), season 3 is finally complete when it comes to filming.

This great news was confirmed on Saturday in a post by showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ assistant Cat Taylor, who has been a part of the action up close and personal in northern Iceland the past week or so. While production has been streamlined and efficient just about everywhere they have filmed thus far in 2012, this most-recent shoot is the most impressive. We still cannot fathom how producers were able to get all of the footage that they needed for Beyond the Wall in such a short span of time, especially when dealing with short days due to the geography of the location and freezing cold temperatures.

So where do we go from here? Really, we sit around and wait. Sadly, we will probably not see as much when it comes to updates from production now, given that there is little else there to actually update; after all, the footage now goes into post-production, where the talented editors and visual effects artist turn the footage from something that looked great on location into something that will be stellar on HBO beginning on March 31.

As for when we will see some more season 3 footage, current expectations are that a behind-the-scenes clip will air prior to the start of “Boardwalk Empire’s” season 3 finale a week from Sunday. It could end up being 2013, sadly, before we get a full-length trailer for the show depending on how fast the editors work and how HBO decides that they want to promote the show.

Are you ready for some ice and fire on TV soon?