h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just started watching the first season...up to episode 7...bally heck it's a good show.

Superbly filmed...they production company were obviously able to find and buy one of those tripod things that seem so hared to find these days.

The story is brilliant.

Great to see another show packed full of brilliant British actors (and Sean Bean - come on - he's not great - he's solid but not much more - I do like him though as an actor - currently going through 'Sharpe').

Bean is good when he is basically being Bean (see "Hugh Grant Effect™"), not the kind of actor who can easily play against type.

FB

On on the British actor thing it is most amusing seengin bit part players from The Bill, Corrie, Brookside etc in such a polished US tv show.

How Irish and Northern UK character actors must thank the gods for HBO!

FB

I think it's now a measurable percentage of Norn Irn's GDP

My best friend was over yesterday from London. She'd wanted to see round the new Titanic Belfast building, but what really piqued her interest (and that of all those she was furiously texting) was the Paint Hall building where the green screen stuff was filmed, which is next door.

Wow, this thread's gone quiet.

Is it me or did they massively undersell the murder of Renly?

My memory (admittedly of a book I last read 10ish years ago) is that it was a proper major event. It was just another scene here.

The person I watch it with has read the books, and they said that in both the book and the show, the even seemed to them too easy. It's one thing to hear dark hints about wights and witches and stuff, it's another to actually have a shadow just blow in and stab someone. Her point was - why not simply do that to all Stannis's enemies?

My response was, presumably there's a great cost to paid for doing something like that. The shadow was apparently a one-shot deal, and one assumes she can't pump these things out daily. However, that's not been made explicit. (Compare to the movie "Excalibur" - Arthur asks Merlin if he can make Guinevere love him. Merlin explodes - "I once stood exposed to the dragon's breath so a man could lie one night with a woman. It took me NINE MOONS to recover! Never again! NEVER!" This thing, by contrast, seemed relatively easy. I hope the price becomes apparent.)



Now here's a thing. Last night there was another "Hey, it's that guy!" moment, when Alfie Allen was abused by his new crew and his first mate suggested he ignore the orders he'd been given. The first mate was clearly Finchy out of the Office - Ralph Ineson. I would have sworn blind this was the case... then I checked IMDb, which is the oracle for this sort of information. But IMDb doesn't show Ralph Ineson as being in Game of Thrones, so that's that. Except... Wikipedia and other sources, and the evidence of my eyes, say it's him. This is the first time I've ever found something definitely wrong on IMDb. Gosh.

I'm liking more as the season goes on and episodes get less "bitty". It's a price you pay for a rich story - there needs to be a LOT of setup early, which means lots and lots and lots of three minute scenes skipping about all over. Once the first few eps are out of the way and established, you can settle down and do proper scenes to advance stories. I think we're there...



Best moment? "Anyone can be killed." It was awesome in the "Seven Devils" trailer, it was even more awesome when you realise it was delivered unblinking into the face of Tywin Lannister... and then held his gaze... whoof.

Maisie Williams, a few days past her 15th birthday, held her own against Charles Dance, one of the most accomplished stage and screen actors out there. She is sensationally good.

In the books Melisandre's trick is explained to be a one-time (or possibly two-time, it's vague about something) only deal and that what she did took a high toll on Stannis, that she couldn't do it again without endangering his life. You're right though, they should explain it otherwise people will be asking.

Last weeks episode was very, very dark. Jack Gleeson's portrayal of Joffrey was sickening and very powerful. Sansa's mistreatment at his hands gives extra pathos to a character who wasn't well-developed last series and they seem to be ramping up for a relationship of sorts between Tyrion and Sansa, harking back to his declared sympathies for "cripples, [legitimate word for illegitimate child - bloody filther!] and broken things".

This weeks was much quieter and started to set up the final run of episodes. Brienne and Osha the Wildling were awesome and Margaery Tyrell continues to be a superb player of the Game of Thrones (even if her dress makes her look like a cricumcised penis).

Well that's the first time I've been sexually attracted to a circumcised penis I have to say

I don't recall Margaery Tyrell having such a prominent part in the books but then it is a while since I've read them.

I'm glad you dealt with the price to the priestess thing as my memory on that front stretches only back to what I read in A Dance with Dragons last night but I shalln't go into that.

One thing that slightly irks me is that the Stark kids are all too old (with the apparent exception of Sansa I think).

Bran is supposed to be about 8, Arya 11 (or maybe even less, that's going by what Jon Snow has said in a recent book), Robb is suppose to be only 13 and I think even Jon is a bit old - I think he's supposed to be about 15.
I understand why they haven't done that though to be fair.
(Joffrey's only about 11 or 12 too iirc).

In contrast to what I said before, I've now decided that the portrayal of Brienne of Tarth is pretty much spot on now. Far too bloody noble for her own good.

I understand why they have aged some of the charectors many of them just wouldn't be "right" as children
sansa is only meant to be around 13 I think it says in the book at this point she hasn't "blossomed" but I've no idea, it would just be a bit creepy if they were the actual ages of the children in the books
although I must say that when I'm reading it I tend to forget what ages they are meant to be and my brain ages them to around what they are in the tv adaptation anyway.

Dany's meant to be about 14 in the books. Which would've made certain scenes with Khal Drogo a little bit weird...

Ooh. She's younger than that.

"In the Free City of Pentos, Illyrio and Viserys arranged to marry the thirteen-year-old Daenerys to Khal Drogo, a great leader among the Dothraki people."

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Daenerys_Targaryen

Same site; Sansa is 11, Jon and Robb both 14, Joffrey 12.

Indeed - Joffrey has a line towards the end of series one where he informs Sansa something along the lines of "When you get your first blood I'll put a son in you" - the old romantic fool. But it does rather make one think "Hang on - first blood? She's about sixteen, she should already be..." But one probably shouldn't think too hard about these things.

One other thing - those may be the ages of the kids at the beginning, but there's clearly a lot of time passing between and within episodes. As in at least a year in season 1, if not more.

They're screwing around with the timeline as it happens.

I was reminding myself of the backstory of one or two characters on t'web earlier and I discovered just how much they're diverging from the books. It might soon be rather meaningless to compare their ages to the two comparatively.

(It might be creepy, but in the middle ages, 12 year olds really did marry 60 year olds in 'noble' families...)

Ooh I've just found why they decided to rename Asha Greyjoy...

>>In A Song of Ice and Fire her name is Asha Greyjoy, but producers of the TV series thought the audience would find it difficult to differentiate between the name 'Asha' and Osha<<

Hmmm, can't see a problem myself. Are the two ever actually likely to be in a scene together? Think not.

Possibly...







*Book 5 spoilers*






Asha is the prisoner of Stannis Baratheon at the end of Dance with Dragons and Davos has been sent to Skagos to rescue Rickon Stark who escaped Winterfell with Measter Luwin and Osha. Not unreasonable to assume Stannis and Davos will reunite at some point.

Book 5 spoilers? Are you taking the piss?

Anyone else think that the Stark to worry about is Rickon? He looks like he's going to grow up to be a mentalist.

I heard the decision was explicitly made to add a specific amount of time since the civil war. I think it was three years. I agree that, while it was unfortunate to deviate from the books at the very outset, the alternative is unfilmable. American television just can't handle non-abusive sex scenes involving a 13-year-old character in a mainstream programme.

Oh of course.

I guess since series 1 has gone it's OK to talk more explicitly about book 1 now. What the series changed quite a lot is that the 'flowering' of the sexual relationship between Danaerys and Khal Drogo was not, in the book, down to training from courtesans to please the guy.
It developed from Dany deciding, on her own, to spice things up beyond the traditional Dothraki sexual practise of taking one's good lady wife doggy style whenever one felt like it, without much in the way of permission.

Indeed - not many main stream TV channels are going to cope with that.

Oh, and Ralph Ineson was in the end credits. I noticed his name and thought it was familiar, although I'm not sure where from since I avoided The Office.
Ah, he was in the last few Harry Potter films, as well as The Damned United. I note that IMDb have also corrected their mistake, and now credit his role in GoT.