Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is as complete a universe as exists on television, whatever its rhythm. More drama and more bloodshed are certainly forthcoming, and I have every confidence they will be served up as delicious and sopping as a rare steak.

Massive, cruelly dense, absurdly complicated and absolutely thrilling.

So far (judging from the first four episodes), it's living up to our highest expectations.

Game of Thrones is like no other TV show around right now--brilliant, exasperating, enthralling, and, if you let it become so, hard work.

There's event television, and there's Game of Thrones. [8 Apr 2013, p.41]

The show beautifully depicts a massive game of musical chairs, a world at war with doom ever present just across the border.

Sunday and the next three episodes are superb while the rhythms and beats of the story are very nearly hypnotic. Nothing here feels wasteful or cheap.

Here’s to a dense, layered, enterprising and fascinating journey through Season 3--and as many more seasons as need be to complete this incomparable fantasy.

Not as much sex as you may be used to, but plenty of action, and enough complexities to keep geeks, geniuses and fans glued to the strange and wonderful world of the Seven Kingdoms all spring.

The series is so good that it isn't seriously harmed by its few minor flaws. Much of the dialogue is brilliantly written, revelatory and credible.

At its best, it’s big, bloody and downright glorious.

Those who make the investment are richly rewarded. There's enough tension, betrayal, treachery, greed and sex, after all, to fill eight seasons of "Scandal."

The most compelling characters in season 3 are the gentleladies.

The physicality of the visuals and the performances helps power Game of Thrones past any rough patches--not that there have been that many.

I just want my favorite shows to be able to break my heart, and the more broadly Game of Thrones ranges and the longer its cast list grows, the tougher it will be for the drama to do that. It's impossible not to be drawn into the saga, however (aside from one or two strands that are filler and/or confusingly laid out).

This is extraordinarily ambitious and entertaining television, wherever its pedigree.

Game of Thrones plays by its own rules--and remains irresistible.

Game of Thrones seems to be getting better all the time judging from the four episodes sent for review. It’s just that it also seems to be taking longer and longer to get there in the interests of servicing all the returning and new characters in play.

Game of Thrones remains a very entertaining series set in a very rich world. But the longer it’s on, the more it feels like Benioff and Weiss are only scratching the surface of that world--even if that may be the only way to coherently explore it.

While Season 3, like the novel on which it is based, takes a little while to get going, when it does pick up speed, it soars--particularly in the sensational third and fourth installments.

No one in Westeros is going soft, and there is no shortage of intrigue and sly drama that doubtless foreshadows death, destruction and plentiful violence to come.

If Game of Thrones still feels like it's just a bit weighed down by the sheer heft of its narrative strands, to say nothing of the seemingly endless backstories and mythologies, the series at least now feels like it has some firm footing and a newfound sense of certain direction that was lacking intermittently in the second season.

The tapestry of characters in George R.R. Martin's fantasy kingdom has grown so huge now that only the most avid fan can hope to identify them all, let alone keep track of the family ties, alliances and enmities which make this quasimedieval world so dangerous to nearly everyone in it.