Game of Thrones: Early impressions

I'll be perfectly honest: you can expect to see HBO shows come up fairly regularly on this blog. Since this show is still young enough to attract new viewers, I thought it would be a good place to start.

The show, based on George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series, runs a full 60 minutes without commercials Sunday nights on HBO.

Game of Thrones is epic in scope, dealing with the affairs of kings and lords in a setting which includes seven kingdoms. An extra layer of mystery and tension comes from what lies behind the ominously delivered prediction: "winter in coming". The seasons do not cycle in the same familiar way experienced anywhere on earth, and winter apparently comes with far more dangers than the cold.

As someone who has not read the books and knows nothing about them, the series starts by being both incredibly intriguing, and a bit confusing. The pilot episode certainly raises enough questions that it draws you back to watch another episode, but there is so much going on that does not yet have context that it can be hard to keep track. However, by the end of the third episode, the relationship between the seemingly unrelated stories has been established, and the viewer is more fully pulled into the various plots, plans, and stories.

The quality of the production is of the level you would expect for HBO and the sets and costumes lend themselves perfectly to what promises to be a sprawling epic. Of the many characters, several jump out and make you want to know what happens to them. The acting is fantastic and you are likely to spend the whole hour fully immersed in another world.

In general, I do not consider it a good thing to have to watch a few episodes before I know what's going on, but I think to cram a bunch of exposition in the pilot to clear everything up would have compromised the overall quality, given the scope of the story. If you are willing to give it a chance, the show will most likely draw you in. And, of course, if you are a fan of fantasy settings with swords and kings, and horses, then you owe it to yourself you check it out.