I put off watching this show for a long time I must admit. The medieval fantasy setting and what some people were calling Lord of the Rings style set-up and talk of supernatural and dragons did not appeal to me. But what did appeal to me and what led me to watching it was HBO's involvement. Now, name-branding does not guarantee a quality final product, but HBO have always been up to a standard that the show will be watchable at some level, and Game of Thrones is that and much, much more.
Based on George R. R. Martin's 'A Song of Fire and Ice' series of novels, what immediately captured my imagination with this show was the wonderfully fleshed out characters and deep mythology rooted into each House. Sean Bean's Ned Stark leads the cast as the House Stark family patriarch, whose loyalty to the new king Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy) begins to unfold a tale of lies, deceit, backstabbing, violence and betrayal in finding out what happened to his predecessor John Arryn. There are a wealth of side stories intertwining throughout the season, with the shady Lannister family, the Night Watch, the exiled Tagaryen's and the tribal and brutal Dothraki's all having fascinating and contrasting storylines. All the season is alluding to is the coming winter, a darkness that will bring monsters that are only glimpsed throughout the season, but have the potential to cause havoc in upcoming seasons as well as tensions between families hitting murderous levels. Bean's Stark is a noble hero, whose stubborn-ness leads him down a dark path, while characters that stand out during the season are Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage, who won multiple awards for his role), Petyr Baelish (the ever-immense Aidan Gillen) and Stark's wife, Catelyn (Michelle Fairley) who is the doomed matriarch of the Stark family, seeing her family disintegrate right before her.
There is too much going on in Game of Thrones for it to be accurately summed up in a few short paragraphs. If you are in the mood for something completely unique and in a fully realised and visually stunning universe, this show will do it for you. Add in the trademark HBO style, with plenty of violence and adult themes and top notch production values and talent behind the camera and on screen too, then Game of Thrones is an absolute must-see television event.
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