Game of Thrones
Episode 1 (Winter is Coming) & 2 (The Kingsroad)
Directed by: Timothy Van Patten
Written by: David Beinoff and D.B. Weiss adapted from George R.R. Martin
Starring: Mark Addy, Alfie Allen, Sean Bean, Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Fairley, Aidan Gillen, Jack Gleeson, Iain Glen, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Issac Hempstead-Wright, Harry Lloyd, Richard Madden, Rory McCann, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams

I’ve got a confession to make.

I haven’t read a single book in George R.R. Martin‘s A Song of Fire and Ice series.

Unlike last year’s big literature-to-television adaptation, Walking Dead (of which I’ve read every issue), I wanted to go into Game of Thrones fresh, without any prior knowledge or expectations of the series. I wanted to see how a 694-page book would translate over to HBO. I’ve seen the big-screen adaptations of fan-favorite fantasy novels like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but I was interested in seeing how showrunners David Deinoff and D.B. Weiss would handle Martin’s material on a week-to-week basis without confusing the hell out of everyone.

So far, they’ve done an outstanding job.