pat-82566

Three episodes in and I feel like I'm trying really hard to like House of the Dragon. I'm not giving up on it just yet, but it's not getting any better week to week.

The problems:

• Exposition over and over and over again. There's so much ground to cover given that the Dance of the Dragons story from Fire and Blood covers decades. The show has chosen to skip over a lot of the story, which is probably for the best but having characters we barely know explain things about other characters we barely know over and over again is wearing thin

• the characters we do know are deeply uninteresting and unlikeable. I'm all for complex characters but there has to be someone we're rooting for, even if they're doing awful things. Having read the Dance of the Dragons I think we probably should be rooting for the regular folks of Westeros but we're not seeing any of them yet.

• the dialogue is incredibly boring

Game of Thrones was very good (more so in the earlier seasons) of introducing characters and quickly making you fall in love with them, mostly by using George's dialogue from the books.

Remember Ned and Cat's first scenes or the scene where we first meet Tywin? And Littlefinger and Varys's throne room scenes. All just a few minutes but so much ground is covered and so much connection between us and the characters.

I was looking forward to how House of the Dragon would show the changes in Rhaenyra and Alicent over the years but as it hasn't done a great job of really helping us get to know them as they are now, I'm not feeling confident.

• the CGI is really poor

the Volume might be a really exciting piece of technology but the effect here looks so incredibly fake that it's jarring. The scenes at Dragonstone looked like matte painted scenes from the 1940s and 50s - impressive at the time but a clear backwards step from the visual effects of Game of Thrones.

• Plot armour

The battle scenes in episode 3 were some of the most exciting of the series so far. But with little investment in most of the characters, and Daemon wearing plot armour so thick that out of a thousand arrows only a couple made it through, I found myself pretty unengaged despite the addition of a new dragon.

The positives for me are unfortunately mostly playing on the nostalgia for the original series.

The music as always is fantastic. The opening credit scene is also beautifully done. And the costumes are beautifully detailed (although the wigs are often questionable)

I'm still hopeful that we'll get an engaging story but the final seasons of Game of Thrones showed that when we don't understand or care about the characters, it's really tough to tell a satisfying story no matter how many battles or dragons you throw at it.

No, not the finale....that was poor.

From the moment that the writers decided to introduce H as one overarching mastermind and then tease the big reveal over and over again, even suggesting it could be one of the three main characters, it was never going to end well.

The earlier seasons of Line of Duty were brilliantly intricate puzzles. The viewers knew they were only seeing parts of the story and were looking for the gaps and the things that didn't make sense, in order to find the time jumps that contained the truth.

And when the truth was revealed it made complete sense, a beautifully crafted and complete story that was part of a larger picture of how institutional failures and incompetence are not only a fertile breeding ground for corruption, but are inherently corrupt themselves.

But in Seasons 5 and 6, this intricate and detailed storytelling was sacrificed for police shootouts, catchphrases, and a "Who shot JR" style approach to TV. Big audiences followed, which makes it near impossible to then go back to a story about why it really does matter who pays for the wallpaper and sofas of those in positions of power.

The "story" this season was weak and uninteresting, the result of too much time spent on car chases and inexplicable waste of time moments probably included to create misdirecting trailers. Most notable of these was Kate fleeing the scene after shooting Ryan.

The Gail Vella murder was largely wrapped up a couple of episodes ago, and the most obvious motive and perpetrator turned out to be the motive and perpetrator. Expectations subverted, or not subverted, which is subverting them now, I guess?

In the end, it tried (and failed) to find a middle ground between the fan conspiracy theories and the puzzle box storytelling of previous seasons. So we ended with neither a detailed and satisfying story where the team close in on a few corrupt officers but can't bring lasting change, nor an action packed and pulpy conspiracy story with a splashy fan service ending.

For a show as good as it once was, that's a shame.

I'm midway through episode 3 and so far it's utter garbage. A catastrophic event has people in the north lynching each other while the south carry on with bread and circuses. What on earth could they be talking about?

Don't worry, I'm sure at some point one of the characters will actually say "This is just how Brexit will be" - it's that on the nose.

A cringeworthy script, wafer thin characters and tedious side plots. Someone cried out "Is this what we've become?" to no one in particular. I like to think he was talking to the creators of this mess.

The concept had some potential but the execution is appalling. Everyone involved should be seriously embarrassed.

If you can stick with it through what feels like a bit of a slog at the beginning, this is an intriguing, if very uneven show.

The good: -- Henry Cavill's performance really does carry the show and the actor who plays Dandilion/Jaskier also does a great job. -- The cinematography is gorgeous, when it doesn't have dodgy costumes and sets to contend with. -- The story threads are brought together in a way that is genuinely entertaining if you hang in there. -- There are some great set pieces, especially Yennefer's portal chase and pretty much every one of Geralt's sword fights. -- There are enough intriguing storylines to bring me back to watch a second season.

The bad (and unfortunately there's quite a lot of it) -- The supporting characters are very underdeveloped and forgettable. Renfri, Calanthe and Stregebor were huge missed opportunities. Game of Thrones showed us it is possible to introduce a character in just one episode and still have us feel devastated when they die. For the most part this doesn't happen in this show. When supporting characters die, you're more likely to wonder who they were.

-- The time jumps hinder the storytelling, rather than helping it. Everything feels very rushed and so much story is being crammed in. At the same time, non book readers will probably be confused and bored. It's asking a lot for someone to care about the fall of Cintra when they've barely seen any of it or got to know anyone from there. Seeing a princess playing knucklebones, dressed as a boy, isn't enough to make us find her interesting. Time and time again we're asked to be interested in something because of what's going to happen, rather than building our interest genuine backstory and characterisation. Many non book readers won't have the patience for this and I don't blame them.

-- Costume, set design, makeup and creature effects. The big budget clearly wasn't spent here. There are some truly awful CGI effects. The striga, the sylvan and the dragon are laughable. Only one monster scene actually looks cool and you have to wait for the last episode for it. There are also some bizarre creative choices. A group of mages marching in to battle in ballgowns looks as ridiculous as it sounds.

-- The music is occasionally cringey. Jaskier pulls it off and manages to sound both medieval and modern at the same time, but the score is generally far better when it leaves the renaissance fair style strings behind and goes for something darker and more dramatic.

-- Anya Chalotra seems out of her depth. She also seems to be naked in virtually every episode while Henry Cavill gets love scenes which fade to black and has sex with his clothes on.

There's a lot of goodwill for this show but Season 2 will need to be a lot better and it may already have blown it with non book readers - even those who are genre fans. But many shows have had dodgy first seasons and gone on to be much better (The Expanse in recent times) so I still have faith.

Season One was reasonably entertaining, if nothing new. I hoped that with a second season it would move beyond rehashing stuff we've already seen done much better. But Season Two is both derivative and boring.

Tedious episodes including a ridiculously long opening credits, scenes straight out of Clear and Present Danger, and characters who are suddenly stupid to give us some plot intrigue. Midway through episode one I was already checking my phone. Midway through episode two I had had enough.

I thoroughly enjoyed this as a fantastic piece of storytelling. It was gripping from start to finish - not always easy in a movie over 2 hours - with fantastic performances and breathtaking cinematography.

One star deducted for being quite historically inaccurate. Didn't diminish my pleasure in watching the story unfold but adjusting people's perception of historical events isn't a good thing.

And another one deducted for being highly imitative of Game of Thrones. At times it felt like someone decided to make the Battle of the Bastards Extended Version.

So 8 out of 10 and definitely worth a watch.

I wanted to like it a lot more than I actually did, but I would watch it again and again for the fabulous performances of David Tennant and Michael Sheen. The worldbuilding is beautifully done and the story is genuinely touching. But unfortunately the rest of the cast is underwhelming and the humour is a bit cringeworthy at times.

The two leads absolutely carry the show and it suffers greatly whenever they are not on screen. David Tennant will get all of the attention for his show stealing Dr Who meets Bill Nighy, but I enjoyed Michael Sheen's subtlety much more. The brilliance of his performance even gives away the last twist if you're paying attention.

Oh and the opening credits are utterly superb.

I can't speak to the historical accuracy but, as a drama, this was incredible. Bleak, haunting, and utterly compelling. I was expecting it to be slow in places and to struggle with making the science accessible but I was hooked for all five episodes.

The dialogue is beautiful and the acting superb, but for me the real star is the sound editing. I imagine that it isn't easy to show an invisible, intangible threat with delayed but horrific consequences. But a constant low hum of background noise never lets you forget and keeps you uncomfortable and unsettled throughout.

This is the kind of episode of Game of Thrones that I love. Full of character moments and grim anticipation of the war to come.

In particular I loved the knighting of Brienne and the inclusion of Jenny's Song, which was beautifully done. It felt like the last time we would see all of these characters together and perhaps the last time this world would exist as we know it.

Of course that turned out not to be the case.

Immediately after the episode I would have given it a 10 as a bittersweet goodbye to many of our favourite characters and the last precious moments spent in this world before the White Walkers break the wheel more effectively than Dany ever could.

As it stands, subsequent episodes have unfortunately made this something of an anticlimax. When we know everyone in the great hall survives the battle, much of the pathos of the episode is lost. When we know that Winterfell is virtually unscathed and no one elsewhere in Westeros even knows about the White Walkers it really is hard to care any more.

As I think about how this show unravelled faster than Dany's state of mind, I can only wonder about the thoughts of the HBO execs watching these episodes for the first time.

Maybe that one guy was like "ummm...is it just me or is this not very good?" and everyone else was like "Shut up Steve, you're just mad because it didn't end the way you wanted."

Maybe they all knew it was soap opera level writing wrapped up in a CGI circus and they thought we'd love it anyway. Perhaps they're right and the masses will switch off their brains, but it's hard to see history treating this final season kindly.

Like the show, this is a cautionary tale about what happens when someone (or two someones in this case) has too much power and too little accountability. It's a sad end for a once great show that should have ended when the source material ran out.

And I don't mean Dany's campaign for the throne.

The premature ending of the white walkers' storyline did not bode well but this is the episode when it became clear that the show overall had no interesting story to tell. This is the episode when it became clear that it was pointless looking for coherence.

The writers have decided that they can tell any story they want by retconning anything and everything and abandoning lore established at any point during the previous seven seasons (or the previous seven minutes).

There are no twists coming. There are no clever endings. Everything you think is going to happen is going to happen.