Enjoying...
1. Opening credits are undeniably amazing and deserves a show in its own right.
2. The tone is a bullseye - dirty, medieval, noble and barbaric vs voluptuous chivalry, corruption, retribution and politics - with descriptors being interchangeable on either side of the "vs." As they should be... As they should.
3. Production crew doing great detailed work establishing the character of the various houses, cultures, continents, and costumes.
4. Fine acting, mostly. Dinklage/Tyrion, how we love you already. Reliable Bean. And oh, Robert Baratheon. The Stark children are perfect and the albino brother is a skeeve. Goes to show that good casting can do a lot of work for a director.
5. Succinct fidelity to text, hitting all the major points in dialogue and plot without making everything staid. Complexity intact so far, not that figuring the peeps out is that tough - to the chagrin of one Bellafonte.
Minor Quibs
1. Violence and bloodshed and sex a bit excessive but not far from the bar set by Martin himself, but I can only guess those decisions are the directors solution for distilling the book's convoluted emotional setups into a single scene.
2. Camera dwells on full facial cuts during emotional moments that perhaps are just a bit too long.
3. Cheesy epic soundtrack for a show that should just have a bugler, jester, bard, or piper, according to the situation, because the book, while epic, is not that kind of epic.
4. On the fence about Dany, though her blankness is perhaps expected given her story. And both the Queen and Catelyn are more vulnerable than I expected, though this may also be a red herring, or simply paving their future motivations in a way that makes sense.
Reading such long serials, one tends to forget after several books the simplicity with which we first see a character. Then again, Martin always gives you a clue when he introduces someone. Wether or not the reader catches it at first or remembers it despite the following intrigue is something best left to hindsight.
I need to go read the book again...
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