Thanks to Sky Atlantic you no longer have to keep flying over to America to watch your favourite HBO shows. But here’s what the channel that makes other television look a bit shit have got for us this year. Veep being the thing we’re most excited about.

So Armando Iannuci’s new comedy Veep, about a Vice-President played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus starts on April 22 in the US. There are eight episodes, at least one of which we know to have been directed by Chris Morris.

The second season of Game of Thrones also starts in April, alongside a new show called Girls, which is described as “a comic look at the assorted humiliations and rare triumphs of a group of girls in their early 20s”. Exec producer on that is Judd Apatow, so that might give you some clues.

Before all that, on January 29 is Luck – the Dustin Hoffman starring race horse drama (expected in the UK in February).

Perhaps surprisingly, Danny McBride and Jody Hill’s Eastbound & Down returns for a third and final installment of the extremely sweary Kenny Powers story.

David Simon’s Tremé is expected to return in the summer, for season three. Season 5 of True Blood is also penciled in for around then, with Season 3 of Boardwalk Empire likely to begin in September (are people still persevering with that then?).

We’re pinning all our hopes on Aaron Sorkin’s post-Social Network return to television with The Newsroom, which began filming towards the end of last year and is expected on HBO towards the end of the summer. How it’s going to differ from his own Sports Night or Studio 60 (both taking place behind the scenes of high-pressure TV productions) remains to be seen.

Finally, March sees the premiere of HBO’s political biopic Game Change, with Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin and Ed Harris as presidential candidate John McCain.

Here’s a trailer for that:

Thanks to http://www.spoilertv.com/ for the info