LISTEN TO THIS WISE MAN.

Do not read any spoilers.

And for chrissakes, nobody post any here.

Really enjoyed that but as expected it was mostly just setup. It ended with roughly the time that really drew me into the books.

Damn well executed adaptation so far. Nearly every character outside of maybe Catelyn (figured she would be more attractive) seemed dead on.

I'm not sure I cared for the portrayal of Theon.

First off, I don't know the background of this story at all. I thought the first episode was okay, but probably a little too disturbing for many viewers (my wife is one).

Incest, rape, killing kids, heads getting chopped off.....it seemed a bit over the top to me for a series premiere.

I'll be interested to see what the ratings are for the next couple episodes.

Renewed for a second season.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/04/19/ga...rones-renewed/

It only gets worse. :D

This show (and the books) are not for the squeamish.

From another EW link, premiere numbers were okay, but not great. Way behind Boardwalk Empire (I think I'm the only person who still hasn't watched that), but way ahead of True Blood's initial numbers. Really strong overseas. http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/04/19/ga...miere-ratings/

I'm really surprised by that. I thought this would blow anything HBO has ever done out of the park.

Edit: Did Boardwalk Empire have True Blood or Entourage (or both) leading into its premier episode?

Well both True Blood and Entourage had their season finales exactly 1 week before the Boardwalk Empire premier, so a lot of people may have just been used to tuning into HBO on Sunday nights, plus they'd been seeing the ads for BE while watching TB and Entourage.

I don't remember. I'm not sure it matters all that much, either, the kind of media blitz they had on for GoT, no matter how boring Mildred Pierce may have been.

Fantasy's a tough sell...

We'll see what the ratings are week 2, that's more important. Although it's already been renewed.

I can't say I'm surprised, and like I said earlier I will be interested to see the ratings the next few episodes receive.

Thrones obviously has a strong core of followers, but I'm not sure it will have the mass mainstream appeal of True Blood, Boardwalk, Sopranos, Entourage, etc. if the weekly product pushes the limit on taste as much as the first episode did.

All of those shows have violence, foul language, and random nudity, but they don't go into taboo areas as much as what I saw in the first episode of Thrones (and what it sounds like will carry on throughout the series).

Combine that with the strong sci-fi/fantasy element, and a large percentage of potential female viewers will likely skip out on it.

Keep in mind they still had 4.2 million viewers for the night. It was not a failure by any means, and it was not a low number for a premiere, it was just low compared to Boardwalk Empire.

I tend to think pushing the dark fantasy borders will help the numbers more than it hurts them. I don't think it will hurt the female viewership all that much, either. It may hurt the older, more conservative (socially speaking - not making a political statement...) viewership, but I don't think those folks would have been watching in the first place.

They're pushing boundries for sure, and it's really not fantasy like people have ever seen before, on the small screen or the large. But that's the strength of the show.

The real weakness will I think be the overwhelming number of characters to keep up with. This is going to be a show where you can't afford to miss an episode, or you'll be lost.

Yeah, I think they might cut some promos showing some of the Love side of it to draw in women viewers, but this show already has a huge core fanbase, I don't think it will ever fall off like The Wire, unless it gets bad, which The Wire never did.