The acting is great, but there's no character development in my view. In the pilot of GOT (the first of which had to be thrown in the trash and done from scratch, costing the team a fortune). STARTED with mystery, The individial character's morality, affinity or even duplicity was masterfully fleshed out. The settings FELT real, as well.

HOTD is the plar oposite. The large crowds (not really that large vs what GOT had) sounded like 30 people in a sound stage. The sound in general completely lacked in richness. There's no character development to be found either. I felt no empathy for any of the characters (the queen was one exception). The king completely lacked spine for someone who supposedly was a good man. He let his wife be butchered without even giving her a choice of what to do with the birth.

The bad guy lacked any intrigue and his character was obviusly a bad guy from the second he appeared. He was a cut & paste, black and white villian. Good actor, cheap character. As others have mentioned, the costumes were just bad. The dragons didn't look nearly as good as the ones in GOT! They didn't even look like they were really flying unlike the astoundingly well-done ones in GOT.

I hope they get much better writers (not to mention a better director) .like GOT did BEFORE it even aired. This show was a mistake.as It just wasn't READY to be released. It's just not polished at all. They also need their own Peter Dinklage SO BADLY to carry the story! LOL. None of the characters felt authentic though I do give credit to the actors themselves.