I loved it. Impeccable acting across the board. I like the more contained story with the heavier focus on the castle dynamics/politics. I like the focus on the patriarchal society and how it affects the central women in the show. I think it has a really fascinating cast of characters. Visually impressive, most of the time. And it's really neat to see what Westeros is like when dragons are alive and well, and an accepted part of the world.

I think the main knock against it is just the number of years/amount of story they had to cram into season 1 to set the stage for the war. I'm glad we have all that backstory, but it feels as though it should have had more episodes to flush it out. The recasting of characters would be less jarring if it wasn't so frequent. And there are moments that feel like they should resonate more than they do, because we haven't had much time to get to know the characters affected.

I'm really excited to see what season 2 has in store. I haven't read Fire & Blood, so I'm sure I'm in for a lot of surprises.

Man, the editors were asleep for this article. Interesting insights into the show, though.