OK; so here we go. Just as the second season is about to roll in I gave in to peer pressure and watched the first season of Game of Thrones. Want a better-late-than never review? Probably not, but here goes anyway.

Firstly; let’s clear something up that I wish someone had told me; don’t watch this show on a train. Sitting on a train journey as a pretty girl sits next to me appears to be a trigger for the show to embarrass me as much as possible. I’m sure that girl will be re-telling the story of the weirdo on the train who watches a dwarf receiving fellatio in a medieval setting for years to come.

Ah yes, its...erm...Brett?

Game of Thrones feels the need to squeeze in as much breast as possible throughout with even some penises making un-needed cameos (penises are always un-needed in any medium). Most episodes don’t go by without at least five nipples being shown or at the least a little bit of humping. One later episode in particular sees a character give a speech lasting around four minutes whilst two female prostitutes bring each other to orgasm in the background in some bizarre Bravehart meets Debbie Does Dallas mash-up.

Game of Thrones manages to tick every uncomfortable box going; twins having incest, a ten year old boy being breast-fed, and a pretty girl who weighs about seven stone being rotted out by a barbarian who is big enough to crap sky-scrapers. None of this is a problem, obviously, but it just gives example to the whole after-taste I am left with once the series ended; a lack of integrity by trying to be a grown-ups show. An episode of The Wire is needed to wash my palette after.

She's a killerrr... Queennnnn... Gunpowder, gelatine. Dynamite with a laser beam

I had no background knowledge of Game of Thrones when first watching and like me; any newcomer to the series will certainly scratch their head at many points. As rugged twenty-something guy threatens equally rugged-twenty something guy all the while long-haired-middle-aged-rugged-man looks on in contempt from a balcony, it gets a little confusing to figure out the roles and places of these characters.

As the show goes on things become clearer as most characters are spread out and sent to foreign places faster than a fed-ex package on a Concorde. Thankfully amongst the stars are some actual gems of characters and mostly it falls to the more evil characters to steal my praise. Queen Cersei, played by Lena Headey, and her son Joffrey Baratheon, played by Jack Gleeson (who must have replied to the advert ‘teenage actor boy needed who has a face you want to punch’) manage to steal most scenes they appear in. Special mention as well must go to the dwarf character Tyrion Lannister, played by Peter Dinklage, who constantly entertains not in the usual tired stereotypical comedy performance expected of dwarves but in actual superbly delivered cunningness and likeability which makes him a pleasure to watch.

His breasts are bigger than my face.

Sadly, the show rests on some cliché traditions of TV and overall has that polished Hollywood shine effect that would normally damage my interest. Every character is moulded from Hollywood’s finest materials and even the local tramps and beggars manage to have a tinsel-town layer of gloss applied to them.

Story wise the show is captivating and at times thrilling to watch, but this comes at the cost of the shows integrity. Plot devices such as amnesia, cliff-hanger endings, sudden twists, unneeded sex scenes, and illogical character decisions are a plenty throughout. Major plot-lines can be debunked very quickly and sometimes the logic behind characters actions can be confusing. One particular scene which sees Sean Bean’s character, Eddard Stark, works out one of the shows major back stories results in him bizarrely and instantly confronting the plotter in a casual chit-chat surrounding the incident; the plot in particular being the almost murder of his child son. It was a lame re-action to what should have been a turning point in many of the characters dynamics and relationships in the show.

Look that god-damn smug face you son of...

Game of Thrones will often sacrifice believability for plot-development. One particular scene sees the queen simply remove the kings ruling by ripping up a piece of paper in front of the entire court, despite the Kings official seal being placed on the form. The show often emphasizes heavily on the characters morals, honour, and respect for unwritten laws, but apparently some laws can be just debunked if the paper they are written on is removed.

Often the show will fleetingly excuse some obvious un-believability for story-development, which is understandably so, but once actually questioned begins to show its shoddiness. Characters travel to far-away lands in advert breaks, mentions of armies in the thousands marching that are rarely seen, and characters never previously mentioned before suddenly appearing are examples that spring to mind. The youngest of Sean Bean’s characters children, for example, manages to simply disappear for around six episodes.

Awesomeness at only four foot tall

Despite these short-comings and the shows obviously attempts to be ‘TV’ friendly, it actually all works very well. The show never slips into the gossip-drama-TV level of entertainment and the sheer number of twists and plots being set-up for future development is exciting to watch being played out. The consequence of all this though is that the show fails to ascend into a higher level of integrity and sheer brilliance that exists in shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos, and Mad Men. Overall this shouldn’t take away from what the show is though; fantastically entertaining.

I will be watching the second season of Game of Thrones for certain but not in the way I watched the first season; hoping to be gripped and captivated by the show and expecting excellence based on peers recommendations. I’ll be instead watching the second season with a bunch of my fellow nerds sitting around eating pop-corn and whooping whenever a Stark family member delivers another strong line. One thing is for sure, I certainly won’t be watching the show on a long train journey again.

How did you like Game of Thrones Series 1: An Outsider’s Review?