HBO has announced its roster of shows and premiere dates for the 2014 season, including the launch of Game of Thrones season 4, a new comedy from Mike Judge and the final season of one of its most acclaimed dramas.



The fourth season of the epic fantasy drama Game of Thrones will begin Sunday, April 6 at 9pm on HBO. The first official trailer for the new season will air this Sunday before the premiere of HBO's new drama, True Detective.

The debut will be followed by the third season premiere of the Emmy-winning comedy Veep at 10pm and a brand new comedy, Silicon Valley, at 10:30pm.

Silicon Valley is a comedy about the high-tech world from Mike Judge, the creator of Office Space and Beavis and Butt-head. The cast includes The Office veteran Zach Woods and Freaks and Geeks/Party Down star Martin Starr.

In addition to those premieres, HBO announced that Emmy-winning period drama Boardwalk Empire will end later this year, with the fifth and final season set to air in the fall. That will follow the final season of another long-running HBO drama, True Blood, in the summer.

However, HBO has new dramas in the works, including The Leftovers, a drama from Lost mastermind Damon Lindelof. The show, which starts production soob and is expected to debut in the summer, follows the lives of the people left behind after the Rapture, when two percent of the population mysteriously disappears. The show stars Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman (Private Practice), Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who), Liv Tyler and Charlie and Max Carver (Teen Wolf) among others.

Finally, HBO will also premiere its new TV movie The Normal Heart in May. Based on the Tony-winning play of the same name, it looks at the start of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. The star-studded film features Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, Matt Bomer (White Collar), Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights), Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory) and Alfred Molina, among many others. It's directed by Glee and American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy. Like Angels in America and Behind the Candelabra, The Normal Heart is likely to dominate next year's awards season.

HBO kicks off 2014 with its new drama True Detective, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, Sunday, January 12 at 9pm, followed by the third season premiere of Girls. The new half-hour dramedy Looking, about gay men on San Francisco, starts the following week at 10:30pm.


(Image courtesy of HBO)