It really wasn't bad at all. I had a lot of doubts but they were all more or less alleviated. I liked GoT upto a the same point as everyone else, but I've been let down by shit endings to TV shows before so it wasn't the GoFundMe level apocalyptic disaster that it was for everyone else. I actually half knew in my heart it'd shit the bed and was quite amused how right i was and the vitriolic backlash it got.
- Matt Smith being a semi-convincing nutcase was a welcome surprise. Guy hosted the One show so thought he'd suck at this. He's not amazing but expectations weren't that high anyway.
- I normally don't give two shits about race in movies/TV but I was keen to find out how they were going to explain that this incestuous, purity driven dynasty having Tiquan Targaryen jammed into the family tree (He's got some different last name so I'm guessing one of the Targ daughters was a size queen, I was half hoping it'd be explained by someone saying that he has to be there to fill a quota).
- The wee girl looks a bit like a shit flinging gibbon.
- Rhys Ifans is great and i didn't even realise it was him in his 1st scene. His look whilst trying to pimp out his daughter to the king kinda reminded me of him in Twin Town, murdering a guy with his own garage door retractor.
- There are GoT references but it's done quite tamely. All the family names kinda put you in mind of it anyway. It's actually an example Vinny Gilligan could follow on not totally apefucking the lore to death, which was probably my biggest concern going in. I'd have to watch again to properly nitpick for shit like that and I can't be fucked
I guess if i had one gripe it'd be that it's kinda like 24. There's Jack Bauer, his sidekick who dies, his boss who gives him shit, turns face briefly then dies, Chloe, His bitch who loses a foot or whatever, the villain who dies, the overarching villain who gets a 500k fine, the traitor bitch, the expendable tech guy etc. All the same roles are there and the characters in them are more or less the same as before but just different actors. It doesn't feel all that much has changed in 176 odd years.
It will inevitably go to shit but for one hour of TV nowadays it was OK. I'm not recommending it unless you enjoyed GoT, which basically means I've wasted the last 5 minutes typing this out. Nice analysis, stupid