Having only recently started on the Song of Ice and Fire, by George RR Martin, I don’t have a lot of the history that a lot of other fans do with the series. But, having read the book, I’m not going into the series blind. The HBO name on the series usually carries the sign of quality (John from Cincinnati notwithstanding), and the fact that they are the ones producing the show (rather than AMC or Showtime) means that there is a sense of quality and a decent budget. So, let’s see if winter is coming.
Let’s start with the casting. Sean Bean (Ned Stark), Mark Addy(King Robert), Peter Dinklage(Tyrion “The Imp” Lannister) and Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) are well cast and do a great job showing off the characters. On the bad side, Lena Heady wasn’t what I had in mind for Cersei, but she might change my mind. Emilia Clarke seemed decent as Daenerys, but I wasn’t that impressed overall. My biggest gripe was with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister. Everytime I saw him, he reminded me of Dennis Leary and that wasn’t a good thing.
The basic story told in the pilot is that the King’s Hand, Jon Arryn, died. The King’s Hand is kinda like the chief of staff, he’s the one who basically runs the kingdom while the King eats, drinks and whores. So the King goes to his old friend Eddard (Ned) Stark to be the new King’s Hand. Ned’s wife’s sister is (was) married to the late King’s Hand and she blames the Lannisters (the King’s inlaws) for his death. To help seal the deal, the King offers a marriage: his oldest son (Joffrey) to Stark’s oldest daughter (Sansa). Ned doesn’t want to, but he knows that he has to take the job.
Overall, it was a decent first episode. I’m not sure how much I would like it if I didn’t know the rest of the story. The settings and the atmosphere is well done and the episode does a great job setting up the rest of the series. I really liked this episode. There wasn’t a lot of time wasted on things you didn’t need to know about. The basic internal and external threats to the world are shown and we get a good sense of the major players and their motivations. Also, the scene with Bran and the Lannisters was a great place to end the episode. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, but Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is a little Dennis Leary-ish. What cracked me up with him was I thought he looked just like Prince Charming from Shrek, and I was waiting for him to do the hair flippy thing. But he did do a decent Jaime.
I should have mentioned it in my post as well, but they couldn’t have chosen a better scene to end the first ep on. maybe that’s why they crammed so much info in, just so they could get to that oh-so important scene?
Not sure how far you are in the Books, but Bran becomes a more and more important character later on. And it all starts with that one scene.
I just finished book 3 (review later this week), so I’ve seen some of Bran’s development.