At least my review won't be about the pacing, which I deem quite consistently upbeat and even enjoyably ambitious so far. In fact, I'm here to register a complaint about the acting thus far, and by extension the casting for the series. The characters are all shaping up to be (hardly a shocker, either) incredibly rich and in many ways more archetypal. Where I get lost is in the acting, in particular from Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra and even Paddy Considine as Viserys. They're just not selling me on the reality of their characters and I can't tell yet whether the actors lack the depth for the roles or they're all falling victim to lousy direction; I suspect the former, but only time will tell.
Maybe a part of it stems from the ages of these characters, which skew much more to the margins than GOT's did? I'd find that more believable had the young actors who played the Stark children not completely CRUSHED it left, right and center. Plus there's the fact that these aren't nobodies, I mean I first saw Ifans in 1998's The Replacements and while funny he wasn't turning my head there either (though in fairness that's a much higher bar when all your scenes are opposite Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves, hah).
There's something missing here still...that "spark" that makes you forget this is all just fiction in between the credits. I hope they manage to find it because I really want to like this show, but after two episodes I'm still stuck on Meh.
Review by Peter J. MelloVIP 8BlockedParent2022-08-30T14:12:33Z
At least my review won't be about the pacing, which I deem quite consistently upbeat and even enjoyably ambitious so far. In fact, I'm here to register a complaint about the acting thus far, and by extension the casting for the series. The characters are all shaping up to be (hardly a shocker, either) incredibly rich and in many ways more archetypal. Where I get lost is in the acting, in particular from Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, Milly Alcock as Rhaenyra and even Paddy Considine as Viserys. They're just not selling me on the reality of their characters and I can't tell yet whether the actors lack the depth for the roles or they're all falling victim to lousy direction; I suspect the former, but only time will tell.
Maybe a part of it stems from the ages of these characters, which skew much more to the margins than GOT's did? I'd find that more believable had the young actors who played the Stark children not completely CRUSHED it left, right and center. Plus there's the fact that these aren't nobodies, I mean I first saw Ifans in 1998's The Replacements and while funny he wasn't turning my head there either (though in fairness that's a much higher bar when all your scenes are opposite Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves, hah).
There's something missing here still...that "spark" that makes you forget this is all just fiction in between the credits. I hope they manage to find it because I really want to like this show, but after two episodes I'm still stuck on Meh.