Doesn't reach the first four seasons of Game of Thrones, but still great. Even at its worst, like the Daemon plot armor and the coronation set pieces, are on par with the bad moments in GOT 5 and 6 rather than 7 and 8.

It falters with a lot of the side characters. The writers seem unable to figure out who these characters are or what roles they should take. What's the point of Crispin? What's the point of that Littlefinger knockoff, whose motive more aligns with Euron (and isn't even all that cunning). Why is Laenor alive? What was the relationship between Laena and Daemon? Why didn't Luke get more weight to the series considering the finale?

The magic of GOT is the snowballing effect of small details and motives of characters to a catastrophe, and it hasn't happened often with this show. A lot of what could be small moments that could acclimate get brushed off as one-time events.

The time jump episodes are rough with the show rebooting itself like two times, which is an unfortunate side effect they couldn't avoid.

Still, it is good to see a court politics show that revolves around actual intrigues, dialogue, and planning without mindless action scenes that doesn't bore the shit out of me. The Last Kingdom bored me so bad it ruined my interest in it, and this show put me right back. The pace is good, the stakes are constantly raising, and the main characters are layered. Viserys is such a strong engine of the story that I felt bad about his death more than I felt with Ned.