I purchased the Season 1 DVD shortly after Christmas, but didn't get around to watching the show until last night. I wanted to share my thoughts on the first episode, so here we go with a cross-post:
I've never read the books, and most of the people I know that have won't watch the show because of its grossly uncensored nature, but I decided on a whim to ignore the uncensored nature of the show and delve into it anyway, but have been too busy to watch the show before now.
As someone who hasn't read the books, it took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on at a few different points in the story, but there wasn't anything that completely left me scratching my head.
It can be tricky sometimes to introduce a bunch of characters practically all at once without running the substantial risk of losing people who aren't already familiar with the book's, but the show managed to pull that feat off with flying colors.
Speaking of the characters, there were several who stood out for me, particularly in terms of not quite knowing where they stand. All 3 Lannisters fall into this category, as do the Targaryreans.
This feeling of not quite knowing where the characters stand was exacerbated by my familiarity with two of the actors in question, Lena Headey and Peter Dinklage (particularly Headey, whom I think I will forever picture as Sarah Connor and Queen Gorgo from 300), and it made for interesting viewing since I wasn't sure whether to like the characters or dislike them.
Overall, I liked the episode - which felt very reminiscent of the Pilot for Starz's short-lived Camelot series as well as Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy and the first book in Irene Radford's Merlin's Descendants series - and am glad I bought the first season on DVD and look forward to watching the rest of the episodes.
