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"Have you heard about a little show called Game of Thrones that&amp;#039;s coming up? Alright, we lie - it&amp;#039;s a huge show. The drama&amp;#039;s based on some very popular books by George R R Martin and is set in the land of Westeros, where a number of families are caught up in violent power struggles to take control of the Iron Throne. But should you watch? Well, yes, you definitely should. If for some reason you need a bit more convincing than that, read on for our five reasons to tune in...  You don&amp;#039;t have to be a fantasy fan to enjoy it I&amp;#039;ll be honest - I&amp;#039;m not a fantasy fan. I even struggled to sit through Lord Of The Rings, and I have to agree with the show&amp;#039;s star Nikolaj Coster Waldau, who said: &amp;quot;Fantasy books have the ugliest covers. Why does it have to look like soft porn?&amp;quot; So in hindsight, perhaps I wasn&amp;#039;t the best choice to watch this show. All I can say, though, is thank goodness I did. You don&amp;#039;t have to be a fantasy fan to be absorbed by characters, and Game of Thrones is full of them. Whether you&amp;#039;re after political intrigue, forbidden relationships, full-on action or quiet contemplation, you&amp;#039;ll find something to savour in Game of Thrones. As the show&amp;#039;s writer David Benioff joked, it&amp;#039;s like &amp;quot;The Sopranos in Middle Earth&amp;quot;. But will fans of the books be happy? There&amp;#039;s a cult following determined to see Game of Thrones done properly, after all. Well, George himself has described the show as a &amp;quot;very faithful adaptation&amp;quot; - he even wrote an episode. And cast member Jason Momoa recently told us that he doesn&amp;#039;t see how any of the books&amp;#039; fans could complain. Smiles all round!  The attention to detail is immense You&amp;#039;ve probably already seen some pictures or trailers from the show, so you&amp;#039;ll know that it looks absolutely gorgeous. The first episode opens in a snowy forest by The Wall - the defensive barrier set up to protect Westeros from whatever lies beyond. It&amp;#039;s amazing - the sense of scale will leave you gasping from the very beginning. Then there&amp;#039;s the bustling fort of Winterfell and the golden sun of King&amp;#039;s Landing. The most beautiful scenes from the first episode, though, are the stunning locations Across The Narrow Sea, where Viserys Targaryen, the heir of a deposed King, is plotting to get his Throne back. The scenes were filmed in Malta and look absolutely divine. Seriously, turn the lights off and watch this show on a big screen. But the attention to detail doesn&amp;#039;t just cover what the programme looks like - the series has created a whole new language! The intimidating Dothraki tribe don&amp;#039;t speak English but their own tongue, which is a genuine, working language developed for the show by a linguist from Berkeley. As cast member Emilia Clarke gushed, it&amp;#039;s got verbs and everything! Yeah, they&amp;#039;re taking this seriously - and it shows.  The characters are all fantastic You&amp;#039;d be forgiven for being a little bit intimidated by just how many characters there are in Game of Thrones, but don&amp;#039;t worry - you&amp;#039;ll soon pick it up. In fact, if you&amp;#039;re planning to read the books, it might be a good idea to watch the show as well just to help you follow everything. But despite the massively long cast list, the characters are all astonishingly three-dimensional and you will have a reaction to all of them, which is quite a feat.  House Stark - House Stark is led by Lord Eddard &amp;#039;Ned&amp;#039; Stark (none other than Mr Sean Bean!) They live in Winterfell, the furthest point north in the Seven Kingdoms, so they&amp;#039;re tough and live by the old ways. You can tell that Ned&amp;#039;s a nice guy - loyal and caring - but he&amp;#039;s not opposed to a bit of capital punishment, either. His wife Catelyn is beautiful and kind, but she&amp;#039;s also prone to jealousy and treats Ned&amp;#039;s bastard son Jon Snow cruelly. Then you&amp;#039;ve got Ned and Catelyn&amp;#039;s other children - you&amp;#039;ll warm to cute little Bran and hardy Arya straight away. House Baratheon - The King&amp;#039;s family! Robert Baratheon won the crown after leading a violent rebellion against House Targaryen - in other words, he took power by force. Nice. But his friendship with Ned seems like a true bromance. House Lannister - Cersei Lannister married Robert to become Queen - and you can tell that she likes having power. She and her twin brother Jaime are cold, mean and selfish, which makes for great viewing. Their brother Tyrion, meanwhile, is played to perfection by Peter Dinklage and provides some great light relief (and some very sensible observations). House Targaryen - As you might have guessed, Prince Viserys Targaryen is not too happy that his dad was kicked off the throne and killed, forcing him and his sister Daenerys into exile. Well, he&amp;#039;s got a plan - to marry Daenerys to the leader of the fearsome Dothraki tribe and use his new army to fight back. Emilia Clarke is just brilliant as Daenerys, the soft, scared but inwardly steely young girl forced against her will to marry a warlord who speaks a completely different language.  It&amp;#039;s an HBO drama - with everything that comes along with that... The HBO stamp has come to mean a mark of quality, and Game of Thrones is no exception. As you can tell from above, the characters are not good or evil, but a big mixture of just about everything. And the production budget&amp;#039;s clearly huge. But HBO is also known for not being worried about censorship, which suits Game of Thrones just fine. If you&amp;#039;re after sex, graphic violence, nudity, taboo-busting and orgies, you&amp;#039;ve come to the right place. Game of Thrones has all that and more, but it never really seems gratuitous because at the centre of it all are the characters. George himself has said that his &amp;quot;admiration for HBO has deepened&amp;quot; since working on the show and added: &amp;quot;Sexuality is an uncompromising part of the books, and the violence is uncompromising because the Middle Ages on which these were based were violent and brutal. It takes someone like HBO to do it.&amp;quot;  You&amp;#039;ll get shocks and twists galore! Right from the very beginning of Game of Thrones you know you&amp;#039;re in for a bit of a ride. If you turn off the lights, unplug the phone and immerse yourself in this, you&amp;#039;ll be jumping before the opening titles have even started rolling. But it&amp;#039;s the end of the episode that will really shock you. There are two twists in one, and when I went to a screening my entire row threw their hands to their mouths in surprise - no joke. What&amp;#039;s more, we&amp;#039;re in for even more excitement. When I asked Emilia and her co-star Alfie Allen if there are more shocks in store as the series continues, they both said, at exactly the same time, &amp;quot;Definitely.&amp;quot; Well, that&amp;#039;ll keep us watching! Game of Thrones premieres on Sunday at 9pm on HBO and on Monday at 9pm on Sky Atlantic. Watch the first 15 minutes of Game of Thrones below:    Will you be watching Game of Thrones? Leave your comments below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/game-of-thrones/news/a314591/game-of-thrones-five-reasons-to-watch/>