Game of Thrones Ep1 was OK but not great; it's not gonna live up to the books. The marriage night thing was whack (not that they could have done it like in the book even on HBO) and they totally ruined the prologue.
That prologue is what convinced me to read the series in the first place; it's great because it starts off in this really clichéd way, with these stock characters, and then when (predictably) the monsters pop up, Ser Waymar, instead of doing the nobleman and cowering, stands up, becomes a man, and fights- so totally unexpected. It reminds me SO much of Macbeth, when the prophecies all turn against him and he finds redemption with "lay on, Macduff! And damned be he who first cries 'hold, enough!'" They butchered it in the TV version, and honestly, although the casting is great, I'm not seeing any way in which the writing could work out to be anything approaching the books if the bozos in charge don't even get the subtleties that are present in the very first few pages.
It never can unfortunately, George RR Martin partially wrote it in a way he knew would be near impossible to translate on-screen.
Speaking of which, he had a very heavy hand in working on the show, he's actually a former screenwriter (part of why he wrote it that way, he was frustrated by the limits it placed).
Overall, I think there were a reasonable number of changes that weren't really better or worse, just different (different medium remember, different stuff works), but the limitations of the technology and time are still evident in others (the conspicuous lack of purple eyes, unfortunately none of the contacts could replicate the effect Martin wanted so they had to use natural eye color).
So far strikes me as amazing, not perfect, and the best translation we could get.
Meh, I think the prologue was messed up for different reason:
How the **** did Will get away when the Other was like 10 feet away from him? In the book he gets killed and it's the other guy that gets away (and we don't see exactly how he gets away).
Oh that, stylistic change cause it seemed to fit better with his character, as opposed to Gerad who my impressions in the book was drastically different then the character on-screen. He seemed far too much of a stoic to desert, whereas in the book he came off more as a world-weary pragmatist.
As far as surviving in the first place, I'm just assuming he was lucky and managed to get away.
Also, it's a problem for both book and show: how did the survivor get past the Wall?
I'm gonna assume that he ran off in the transit between the gate and castle black.
