I find myself in the interesting position of having a small test audience for the new HBO series A Game of Thrones.  The test audience involved is interesting precisely because none of the three of us have read the books by George R. R. Martin, and yet, each of us represents a different segment of the general viewing population that HBO hopes will be checking out and following along with this series in the devoted way that fans have flocked to some of the previous offerings.

To start, let me tell you a tad about our test group.  It consists of me, my wife, and her sister.  We break down in the following fashion: me, a hardcore fan of the fantasy genre.  Though I haven't read this particular work by Martin, I'm familiar with other stories he's written, and would generally put myself into the broad category of fan.  (I'm sure the die-hard fans of this particular series might take umbrage with me considering myself a fan having never read the books, but tough nuts pals.  You don't have to read everything an author writes to consider yourself a fan of the author. Besides, my blog, my rules.)  I have a passing knowledge of the books in the sense that I've heard many people talk about them, and have some inkling what to expect, and have heard some of the names prior to watching the series.  I actively anticipated seeing the show.  My wife is not a hardcore fantasy fan.  She is more than a casual reader, but she has a much broader reading palate, and has far less patience for the more generic genre works.  She was intrigued enough by seeing some of the hype material, and watched a few of the pre-launch "making of" type shows that HBO put out about the series.  Getting her buy-in to check out the series wasn't all that hard.  My sister-in-law is not a genre fan.  For point of reference, she got bored enough during The Two Towers movie, that she walked out and I don't think she ever finished watching it.  She's involved in the film and TV industry, however, so she was open minded enough to give it a try, if nothing else than on the general reputation of HBO series. 

So you can see, three quite different types of potential audience members.  Each with more or less of a predisposition to like and enjoy this series.

So we watched the first episode all together.   I had little difficulty following along with who was who, and where everyone was.  However, my wife and her sister often had to stop the show and double check.  I have the two pronged advantage of some prior familiarity with some character names, and long experience of slogging through huge check-lists of characters that can be common in some of the larger epic/high fantasy novels.  In other words, I've got those "muscles" well exercised where someone less familiar, or unfamiliar altogether would have a bit of a struggle.  (This is where TiVO or some other DVR is probably a good thing to have for this series.)  After the episode, I asked what everyone thought.  I wasn't quite as wowed as I'd hoped to be.  But being the first episode, and having to introduce so much, I felt it had earned a B+.  My wife thought it was decent, if somewhat confusing and slow in a few parts.  She rated it a B.  My SIL thought it was okay, but ponderous and she was surprised how underwhelmed she was with the production values, based upon how much they'd spent on the show. In her opinion it was about a C.  However, everyone agreed it was worth giving it another episode to see.

So we gave it two more weeks.  For the most part, I don't think any of our opinions much changed.  We all noticed a bit of a pattern where the start of each episode was noticably slower, and that by the end of the episode it had picked up the pace a bit, drawing you more into the story.  If anything, I'd bet we each slid down the scale a tad, since there didn't seem to be any noticeable improvement of the show.  Each episode was good, but not great.  We didn't feel the need to watch the new episode RIGHT AWAY in that coveted 9pm Sunday slot HBO likes to promote.  Some weeks my wife and I didn't get around to watching the episode until Friday or Saturday.  To me, that's a bit of a problem.  Other HBO shows that I've liked, say Rome, or Carnivale, or Tru-Blood, we're ready to go.  Sitting there waiting to pounce on the new episodes as they come out.  So far, while I want to find out what happens next, I don't feel compelled.  To paraphrase how my SIL described her feelings on it: it's good enough that she'll watch it when it's around, but it hasn't sucked her in like many of the other HBO series have.

So I got to wondering why that might be, and I have a few thoughts on the matter.  The first thing thing I had to wonder about was the problem that the story was a fantasy.  I dismiss that as the cause, because both my wife and SIL quite enjoy Tru-Blood, and that's most definitely a fantasy story as well.  Further, she liked both Carnivale (also a fantasy) and Rome, which while not a fantasy is at least a "costume" drama that shares a lot in common with the plot threads showing up in A Game of Thrones.  (IE, lots of political intrigue, lots of war talk, plenty of lewdness, etc.)   So from a genre POV, I see no reason for the lukewarm reception.  So what's left?

Acting? The acting seems good, though Peter Dinklage steals virtually every scene he's involved in, it is not as if the rest are bad hacks.  Story?   From the fans I know, it seems they are being fairly faithful to the book.  Perhaps that is hurting the story some.  At least, that's my SIL's working theory.  I'm not the kind of fan that feels absolute fidelity is necessary when changing medium for storytelling.  A book is not a TV show, is not a Comic, is not a Movie, is not a Play.  Yes, there are some similarities in all these, but they aren't the same.  Stories do need to be adapted to each format.  Things need to change.  So it is, in my opinion, possible that in trying to be too accurate to the books, the producers are making the series less effective.  That's of course hard for me to say for certain, having never read the books.  However, in at least one aspect, I have a suspicion this might be the case--the constant scene/setting changes.

So far at least it seems to me as if in every episode we're flung from scene to scene, changing settings from one major location to the next constantly.  This can be quite an effective tool, naturally, to keep us abreast of goings on throughout the far flung lands, giving us a sense of all things that are happening at about the same chronological time.  I assume that the novel is written in such a fashion.  But even so, it's a bit too much.  In a book, reading takes you longer, you get more face time with each character before the setting changes, and therefore you develop more empathy to the characters.  I think they might do well to trim back on the story lines somewhat, giving us longer time with each setting and plot thread instead of jolting around so.  I think I might develop more interest and attachment and most importantly empathy for some of the characters in that fashion. 

All in all, a good show, but not the exceptional show I'd been hoping it would be.   I'll keep watching it, to see if they find their feet with it, and hopefully they will.  But it would be nice to see that sooner rather than later, because if our reactions are typical, then I fear they may only hold onto the fan audience from the books, and to really be successful in TV, you need a much much larger viewer base than that, week after week.