I first reviewed this when episode one came out and, well, wasn't too impressed by it. I thought that perhaps the second episode would do a better job, but it only further emphasized the huge problems this show has.

The first one is that these characters aren't particularly interesting at the storytelling is advancing at a breakneck pace. To put it into perspective, we could more or less say a year of storytelling took place in a single season of GoT, whereas here the expectation seems to be that the period from episode to episode can vary everywhere from months to years. This brings a severe disconnect to the viewer, and I think it's going to have big issues when the characters people love now (God, I don't know what for) will be killed off and replaced.

A big problem for me personally are the look and feel of the show, as well as the worldbuilding. GoT is not set in some vague place, it's been established. When D&D originally set out to make that show based on GRRM's writing, everybody involved knew it was not-England. To be sure GoT spiced it up sometimes with eastern-inspired armors and other similar things, but it always tried to stay at least quasi-historical. HotD has completely thrown this out the window. What we see here are vast, totally surreal and unrealistic landscapes, combined with fantasy interiors that not only make no sense, but which in no way resemble GoT. Again, we have seen these places before, so why couldn't there have been some effort put into consistency? HotD goes for the rule-of-cool in a show where it doesn't fit and where it's completely at odds with the soap-ish tone they're going for.

Lastly, the writing is excruciating. I'm not even talking a failure in the narrative or huge plot holes, but scene-to-scene character dialogue.