Knock yourself out. I don't have a monopoly on anything. :thumb:

The thread has been started.

I think the casting is pretty good overall, but Catelyn Stark was horribly miscast. I just cannot believe that any men find her attractive. Not only is she fugly, she is a bitch. And a stupid bitch, too. Why would Ned come to love her, and why would Peter have loved her?

Her character is the one Stark (Tully) that I hate in the books.

I think the actress portraying Dany is fantastic. She is subtlety showing the transformation.

http://www.withanaccent.com/wp-conte...24-300x300.jpg

I don't know, she definitely isn't fugly. She has kind of a brunette Ellen Barkin thing going on.

She seems like a motherly type. Strong woman, a little past her best years as far as looks go. Been through some shit. Her disdain for the "bastard" was clear.

Not having read the books, she's doing a fine job, IMO.

I think she's pretty spot on so far.

Sean Bean isn't exactly his suave Bond bad guy self these days either. They seem to have aged a lot of characters compared to the books. I think Eddard was around 35 when the books began.

Anyway, I started reading the book and watching the show at the same time. My intention was to keep at roughly the same spot, but I'm now halfway through the book just reading at night. Can't put that shit down. I think the show has done a pretty good job so far. The casting is mostly spot on, I like what they did with Syrio. I didn't even realize until yesterday that King Robert is the guy from Full Monty and that shitty CBS sitcom. The show does feel a bit rushed at times, a couple more episodes would have been nice, but I imagine the budget is already high for a tv show. I wonder how they're going to handle the dire wolves as they get bigger. Maybe some LOTR style perspective tricks mixed with animatronics/puppets, I hope they don't go for some bad tv CGI.

I was thinking about the season length this morning, and how Game of Thrones compares to True Blood. The Sookie Stackhouse books are maybe a third as long as the Ice and Fire books, but they stretch those seasons out to the point where they're probably too long (for the source material...), whereas they're trying to fit three or four times as much Ice and Fire into two fewer episodes.

But it has to be an immensely expensive show.

Ratings for the 3rd episode are in, and while I thought they'd be down due to bin Laden, they're up 200k over the pilot and episode 2, at 2.4 million (3.1 million if you add the 10 pm airing; previous high had been 2.9). Ratings in the UK are still apparently strong, as well.

Total viewing of the pilot on all HBO platforms is now at 8.7 million, which is great.

I think it will gather steam throughout the season given that word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive at this point. You could see episodes 8-10 get very good numbers if they build the drama appropriately in the next 4 episodes.

Agreed.

I also think she's pretty attractive.

It might, although I wouldn't be surprised to see a drop this week. There were a lot of people who thought the last episode was slow.

I expect once the tourney begins, that's when the ratings will take off. People like violence.

Wife and I have never read the books and are fairly selective in liking a series. Having said so we are very much liking this one and didn't find episode 3 slow at all. Just a lot of story building necessary to upcoming action. I want to read the books now but fear it will ruin the tv series so I'm leaning towards waiting until the series concludes.

Oh, I didn't think the episode was slow either, I've just read a few blogs and reviews that mentioned it.

I actually thought it was maybe the strongest episode yet.