Dragonstone

Season 7, episode 1. The Hound and Beric Dondarrion are aligned - both wonder why they are still alive, Beric talks Hound into looking into the fire to see what he can see. Cersei is trying to find allies - Jaime is there to help her. Arya pays a visit to all the Freys to remind them "The North Remembers". Daenerys, Tyrion and their fleet arrive in Westeros. Sam and Gilly are adapting to their new life in Oldtown - Sam discovers a Stannis must have been correct. The Night King is making his way south.

9/10

HBO continues to be the home of fantasy and action combined with thought- provoking drama. GoT Season 7 premieres with all the depth of Season 6's finale. Without spoiling the fun, "Dragonstone" doesn't just pick up where "Winds of Winter" left off, it amps up the intensity and brings a promise of another great season of GoT.

Most of our favorites get plenty of airtime, difficult considering the breadth of the series. As befitting a season premiere, we're given some surprising twists, reintroduced to some we've missed, and left ready for the next episode. In between, time flies... although the dragons wait a bit before appearing. But when they do appear, the title becomes both appropriate and poignant. The lack of deep dialogue provides a perfect background for the setting.

Couple of tips - wait for that snack, make sure you watch from the start (before the credits) until the end. Pay attention to small talk and detail, and remember that we're off the books now... for the most part, DB and DW have the reins with GRRM providing oversight!

Waiting for "Stormborn"...

The premiere of Season 7 of "Game of Thrones" was damned good … enough for me to give it a 9 out of 10. (You know you're enjoying a TV show when you are riveted to the screen.)

The dialogue and character development for this show is always first-rate, and the acting often is. Last night was no exception — the exchange between Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), for example, was priceless.

The glimpse of The Night King's wight army, however brief, should please any horror fan. I watch a lot of horror movies, and I'm a tough fan to please. Yet I am still surprised at how this fantasy show continues to succeed in scaring me. It's impressive. If the leaked script for Season 7 is accurate, then the bad guys in the final episode ought to be damned frightening.

I will reiterate a very minor longstanding quibble that I have had with "Game of Thrones" as someone who has not read the books. This story seems to attach tremendous dramatic emphasis to the movement and arrival of groups of people. I do understand the need for this, and its appeal — the logistics are part of George R.R. Martin's world- building, and they bring detail and a sense of realism. There are times, however, when I feel like Daenerys' defining character trait is that she … goes places. (Look! Now her army is here!)

I won't say much more for fear of spoilers — this is a show where even mentioning a character's name can suggest a chapter in his or her character arc. (I will say that I loved the opening segment, even if I was understandably puzzled at first.)

This is great TV.

Game of Thrones is finally on its seventh season now. And we finally have the endgame in sight for the story. This episode does admittedly fall short of the previous two OUTSTANDING episodes from season six, but we still want to see where Daenerys, Tyrion, Jon Snow and The Hound end up by the time the story is all wrapped-up come season eight.

This was a good episode to start on, but I'm mighty curious to see where this will all go to. Will Tyrion survive? Will Daenerys actually take back her long-lost home of Kings Landing? And will The Hound confront his brother The Mountain? I hope the latter happens; that will be a fight to remember.

Anyway, Game of Thrones is still on the air and still leaving an impact on us.

After being impressed by how impressive the sixth season of Game of Thrones was when it continued the character arcs for the surviving Stark and Lannister family members and the writing was as strong as the previous five seasons (despite one episode in season 5 that I considered to be my least favorite, Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken even though it was decent). Anyway, when I saw the first episode of the seventh season last summer in order to catch up with the series finale coming in 2019, it lived up to my expectations and it became a great start. The reason why I'm giving this a 9/10 is because the only quibble that I have with Dragonstone is that while it was great to see Ed Sheeran and the other song artists Will Champion, the drummer from Coldplay and Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol playing Lannister soldiers and sharing a scene with Maisie Williams, they only appeared for four minutes. I mean, after they sang that song together, I was expecting them to have more screen time in the seventh season, but sadly, they didn't. What a shame.

Anyway, the rest of the episode is solid. The storyline continues to be exquisite much like the previous six seasons and continues to up the ante with the relationships. Not only that, there are some great scenes that made it worthwhile to other viewers. Arya disguising herself as Walder Frey and having her revenge on the House of Frey for killing her mother Catelyn Stark and her brother Robb Stark by killing them, Sandor Clegane, who survived his wounds after the fourth and sixth seasons and having to atone for his old life of working with the House of Lannister, and Daenerys's dramatic homecoming to Dragonstone. Those sequences are amazing and another perfect example of well-paced and atmospheric filming which makes them on par with The Red Wedding, the Execution of Eddard Stark, the destruction of the Great Sept, and more. Ramin Djawadi continues to create more excellent music for his score for this season. It fitted the scenes really well as well as retaining the scale and scope of the production designs, which are still as gorgeous and before. The editing is sharp, the pacing didn't drag, and the acting continues to be strong with the best coming from Maisie Williams, Kit Harrington, Sophie Turner, and Emilia Clarke.

Overall, Dragonstone delivered what it promised. It showed the characters trying to make an army to they can begin the war against the White Walkers while continuing the depth and development. This deserves a thumbs up from me. :)