Game of Thrones

I just watched the first three episodes for the fourth-ish time. This is it; this is peak TV. I haven't seen a lot of TV but this is what TV needs to be. It's so intriguing, so infuriating, so yearning.

What it has:

• intrigue like a murder mystery
• a sprawling, complex universe
• a rich set of rich characters

What it hasn't:

• the epic quality of the last few seasons
• the bleak brutality that comes too soon

These episodes are full of hope, a treasure that abandons the series for its entire drawn-out midsection. These episodes are an emotional roller coaster, a house of cards.

Virtues:

• all of the Stark content! and the interactions with the royal family

Vices:

• it feels a little like a soap opera. There's just that general light-hearted cheesiness, only in an epic fantasy setting with tremendous writing. Somehow the writing is superb yet the series feels cheesy like a soap opera. To a degree, that's just the nature of high fantasy
• Dany content. I skipped through most of it for this revisit. Her adventures overseas are a slog, basically the whole time. I find Dany interesting in general, but most of her pursuits are not interesting, they're just killing time until she comes into her own (Dragonstone)