George RR Martin names the ‘best’ TV episode in history: ‘I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly do better’

One of the ‘Game of Thrones’ episodes that the author scripted was included in Vanity Fairs list of ‘perfect TV episodes from the last 25 years’

George RR Martin has revealed what he believes to be the best TV episode of all time.

The fantasy author was reacting to a recent list of “25 Perfect TV Episodes From the Last 25 Years”, which included “Blackwater” from Game of Thrones, which he wrote.

Martin scripted four episodes of the beloved HBO show, which was based on his novel series A Song of Ice and Fire.

“If I had to pick one episode that was even more perfect than all the others on the list… it would have to be the final episode of Six Feet Under,” Martin wrote on his blog about the list, which appeared in Vanity Fair.

“I liked that series well enough, though I cannot say I loved it as much as I loved Rome or Deadwood or Fargo or a few other shows missing from the list, but that last episode was far and away the best finale in the entire history of television, and I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly do better.”

Winning nine Emmys and three Golden Globes over the course of its five-season run on HBO, Six Feet Under focused on the Fishers, a family of undertakers running the California funeral home Fisher & Sons, whose patriarch Nathaniel (Richard Jenkins) is killed in a shock car accident just minutes into the pilot.

George RR Martin (2019 Invision)

The ensemble drama, which ended in 2005, starred Peter Krause, Michael C Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose, Freddy Rodriguez, Mathew St Patrick and Rachel Griffiths.

Martin also praised “The Suitcase” from Mad Men and “the heart-wrenching ‘Ozymandias’” from Breaking Bad.

“The Sopranos had lots of great episodes, but ‘The Pine Barrens’ was special, and for the entire rest of the series I kept waiting for that Russian to turn up again when we least expected,” Martin wrote.

The 74-year-old author recently shared his thoughts on the ongoing Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strikes, which he called “the most important of my lifetime”.

“No one can be certain where we go from here, but I have a bad feeling that this strike will be long and bitter. It may get as bad as the infamous 1985 strike, though I hope not,” he said.

Martin reassured fans that all scripts forHouse of the Dragon season two, the hit Game of Thrones prequel series, “had been finished months before the WGA strike began”.

Giving an update on his long-awaited novel, The Winds of Winter, Martin said he has been working on it “almost every day”. “Writing, rewriting, editing [and] writing some more,” he wrote. “Making steady progress. Not as fast as I would like… certainly not as fast as YOU would like… but progress nonetheless. It keeps me out of trouble.”