Westeros

Last week, we received the first four episodes of season 3 of Game of Thrones to review, courtesy of HBO. While our individual episode reviews and coverage will be held until the corresponding episodes air, it has become something of a tradition to share our general impressions of those early episodes. We did it for the first season, and we did it for the second season, so it seemed only right to do it again. The process of discussing even vague impressions will probably reveal some semi-spoilers, so reading on isn’t going to be a good idea if you prefer to stay unspoiled!

But lets just give a general summing up first, and get into the nitty gritty after: these four episodes are on the whole quite good; not perfect, but they may well be the strongest first four episodes as a whole for the series to date (certainly, they’re stronger as a unit than last season’s first four, though none of them are as good as “What is Dead May Never Die”). Some of our biggest fears going into this season seem, so far, to be unfounded. But there are some issues, such as the fact that a number of the anticipated new characters are rather underwhelming when they finally hit the screen and that there are one or two (largely invented) storylines that don’t really feel like they’re gelling for us.  Still, each subsequent episode goes from strength to strength, each one better than the last. So why do we feel cautiously optimistic? We recall that last season, too, the third and fourth episodes impressed us the most and left us pretty excited about what was to come… and then the cracks started to show and real problems developed that led to some major disappointments. Four episodes in a show like this is not enough to really gauge how the rest of the season will be, especially in terms of how well they’ll translate what’s in the novels to the screen.

Want to read the rest? Read it here!

Now up is the third in our series of actor interviews leading up to the premiere of Game of Thrones on March 31st (April 1st in the UK, Scandinavia, and elsewhere). This time around, it’s an interview with the always-personable Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. Read below as he discusses Jaime’s relationships with Cerseia and Brienne, the ways that Jaime defines himself, and more!

And as it happens, this is also our third interview with Nikolaj to date, and he remains as charming and entertaining as always. The interview transcript below doesn’t really go very far to indicate just how engaging he can be to talk with, and how funny. Despite the provison from HBO that details for season 3 were not really permitted to be discussed, Nikolaj provided some small suggestions about how the story may go in the course of discussing the series, his character, and the fans.

Interview

So, what can you tell us about the new season?

Want more? Read the rest!

An interesting new post on the Making Game of Thrones production blog, discussing in detail the techniques used to create a fiery sword that will feature prominently in a scene in the third season. The details are mildly spoilerish, so I’d suggest not going there if you really want to have no idea whatsoever as to why a sword might be on fire in season 3. It’s pretty interesting reading, in any case, if you’re interested in the nitty-gritty of production special effects techniques.

A sharp-eyed fan (thanks, Jonas!) stumbled across the fact that Mero of Braavos, called the Titan’s Bastard, has been cast. The role of the notoriously brutal and untrustworthy sellsword captain is to be played by Mark Killeen, according to his CV. He also lists director Michelle McLaren as the director of the episode or episodes he appears in. As we’ve previously reported, MacLaren directed episodes 7 and 8 of the third season.

So, the notable sellswords Daenerys meets in Slaver’s Bay are largely accounted for. Is Brown Ben Plumm also in the cards? We’re pretty sure that if he does appear, it’ll be in the fourth season or even later, but you never really know.

And now, following the featurette,  the ritual of screencapping resumes.  You can find many screenshots featuring the new cast members, and anything else of interest that we could spot (along with our commentary) at the Gallery

Also, now seemed a good time to add in the season 3 characters we’re aware of—either confirmed by HBO or confirmed by sources we trust in sufficient number to seem credible—to our season 3 character listing.

Enjoy!

Here it is, folks, what you’ve been waiting for: the first “In Production” featurette for Game of Thrones season 3!

We’ll be adding screencaps to the Gallery, with commentary, presently!

New cast member Iwan Rheon, whose casting confirmation we reported on awhile back, and whose role (“BOY”) has been the subject of a lot of well-founded speculation, was interviewed by the always-excellent Red Carpet News regarding his experience filming on the show and just who he worked with.

(Watch the interviewer rather cheekily taking a stab at Rheon’s character’s identity with his opening question):

(Thanks to CoolOff on the A Song of Ice and Fire Forum for bringing the interview to our attention.)