The entire summer vacation industry came under threat today when HBO announced that Game of Thrones season 7 would move its broadcast date to summer 2017.

Hoteliers, package airlines and sun lotion manufacturers expressed dismay at the announcement. “I felt a great disturbance in the Force,” said a spokesperson for them, quoting the wrong franchise “As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

“Now that winter has arrived on ‘Game of Thrones,’ executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt that the storylines of the next season would be better served by starting production a little later than usual, when the weather is changing,” said Casey Bloys, president, HBO programming, completely ignoring the pain inflicted on so many people. “Instead of the show’s traditional spring debut, we’re moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule.”

Adding insult to injury, the producers have also announced the final two seasons would be considerably shorter, consisting of approximately six to eight episodes each. Quite how the world will deal with this double blow and whether or not vacation related industries will ever recover remain to be seen, but it certainly looks like our vacation tans will be lacking for the next two summers.

Source: Variety