Brief Story Line
Set 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, Viserys from house of Targaryen (Paddy Considine - The Outsider mini series, The Girl with All the Gifts etc) had just been chosen as the new king of Seven Kingdoms despite being younger than his cousin and firstborn Rhaenys (Eve Best - Fate: The Winx Saga TV series, The King's Speech etc).
King Viserys was supported by the Hand, Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans - The King's Man, Berlin Station TV series etc) whose young daughter Alicent (Emily Carey - Anastasia: Once Upon a Time etc) was very close with young princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock - Upright TV series etc). Otto and the members of the council that also included Rhaenys' husband Lord Corlys (Steve Toussaint - The Knock TV series etc) were worried of Viserys younger brother, the rogue Prince Daemon (Matt Smith - Morbius, Last Night in Soho etc) who always seemed to create trouble.
After years of Viserys reigning, the now adult Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy - Truth Seekers TV series etc) had become more mature and had her eyes firmly set on becoming the Queen. However, the road to this would be very difficult especially due to so many challenges and her broken relationship with Alicent (Olivia Cooke - Ready Player One, Vanity Fair TV series etc).
So what would happen in the first season of this series? Well you can find them out for yourself.
End of Brief Story Line
When I started watching the first episode, I was quite intrigued of how it would fare as to the original series. And to be honest, I could not decide yet in the beginning as we were introduced to the various characters whom I had to familiarize with. But anyway, once I reached around half hour mark, I began to see who were the main characters that I need to pay attention to. I also could easily see that Daemon would be an important person who would have major impact in the story.
As I continued watching, I felt that the story seemed to focus a lot on the political turmoil and power struggle in the house of Targaryen, which is fine if you are really into that sort of thing. For me though, after watching the complete first season, I realized that the reason I loved Game of Thrones (GoT) so much was because the fight for Iron Throne was not only within 1 kingdom, but rather involving the other kingdoms as well. So there were so many fights among them and to top it all, they have a common enemy that made me highly anticipating the ultimate war, which I did not see in this series (yet). Oh, another thing that I felt lacking in here was definitely the battle. There was only one interesting battle (not up to the epic level) in one of the episodes, while the rest were filled with the internal plotting and back stabbing and I think only few brief uninteresting fights.
The series obviously had high production value. From what I read, it cost way more than GoT. And it really showed! I was extremely delighted seeing the amazing setting, the wonderful costumes and definitely the extraordinary visual effects. Those dragons were absolutely gorgeous, lifelike and just great to see and I could not help to be in awe every time they appear. So that is definitely the plus point compared to GoT as it already has dragons even from the first episode.
I said above that the character I could see would have major impact was Daemon. He was one of my favorite character due to rather chaotic, a bit self destructive nature and of course his love for violence. I thought Matt Smith was great portraying this character. Oh King Viserys was a surprise for me. At first I was not really into his character but as it progressed, I grew to like him more and sympathize what he experienced. Paddy Considine was just brilliant. There were also other characters that were quite important, such as Daemon's girl Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno - Devs mini series etc), Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel) and many many more with varying degree of on screen presence.
Now the two most prominent characters were obviously Rhaenyra and Alicent. Their characters development were really interesting. I was actually quite surprised when the cast were replaced half way through the season. But then I thought they had no choice since it would be difficult to pull off making Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke to portray two teenagers. Personally to me though, even if I could understand it, I was a bit looking forward to have their young versions longer perhaps all through the first season and not suddenly change in the middle. If they were going to replace them anyway, probably better if they do it after one or maximum two episodes, so we would not have been too attached with these two young actresses.
Of all the 10 episodes, I really liked the 3rd episode due to reasons I am sure you could have guessed, though sadly the 4th episode felt like it lost its momentum. Now I also like the ending of 9th episode which made the season finale became so outstanding and ended on a definite high note as it set up for a very interesting second season. Overall this series was pretty remarkable as it still managed to keep fans of the original series excited and highly regarded by critics as well. For me, even if I like the series in general, but I think it still remains to be seen if the subsequent seasons could still make me as thrilled as the original series, especially because of the non existing ultimate enemy to look forward to. Besides I felt they skipped the years too fast here (or the sophisticated term: time jump) and having too few battles. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed this series to fill the void after completing GoT and I truly hope there would be more battles in the seasons ahead.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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