It’s incredible how painfully long the wait can be for a new season of a show that’s so brain-explodingly, face-meltingly good that you want it to run non-stop all year long.

One of those shows (at least for a large number of fans) is HBO’s Game of Thrones, which is of course based on author George R.R. Martin‘s “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series. We knew it would be around springtime of 2012 that we would finally get our beloved fantasy series back, but now an official date has been set.

HBO has announced that season 2 of Game of Thrones will premiere on April the 1st at 9pm EST. Unless of course this is some sort of very, very, VERY cruel joke.

Returning cast members include Emmy winner Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Michelle Fairley, Lena Headey, and Kit Harington, with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss acting as producers.

April Fools’ Day is easily the most annoying day of the year, so it’s nice to know we have something to look forward to this year!

[Source: HBO]