Episode #1.1

Read book 1 and the book and the movie are close enough for avid fans to enjoy! Great casting and beautiful venues for the show! Matthew and Diana are better than expected but the supporting cast is well done too. Worth the watch and want to see what they do with book 2!

I'm not into vampire themed shows or books usually, but this is great. I only wish they'd had at least 10 episodes for S1 to do it justice. Any shortcomings can be traced to a lack of time. Matthew Goode was born to play Matthew Claimont (hot as hell) and Teresa Palmer is very engaging as Diana. It just gets better and better as the series goes on. Books are a must read.

Honestly, I wasn't certain that this series should have been made in to a series since the movie/series format rarely does it justice...however, I think this first episode was quite good. It didnt follow the book to the letter, but I didnt expect it to since the book is so rich in details...aaaand we can debate about the casting of the different characters, but all in all, a fair start to something that could end up being great.

I enjoy when the first episode does not drown you in explanations, but rather lets you imagine the world yourself. The chemistry between actors is spot-on, and I absolutely want to watch the next episode immediately.

Only the names of the characters are the same to the novels. Everything else other than one view of sculling on the Thames is all twisted up, moved around in time according The the source material. And those characters were sadly poorly cast for their roles except one 'bad guy' character. For example that won't give anything away.... in the very first episode there are scenes taking place in Venice with counsel members. Anyone familiar with the novels knows how much must take place before we are even told such a counsel exists and then where they have their court. I saw three episodes before I stopped. I watch everything for free since I stream, so seeing this listing as a premiere caught me off guard. I can only presume the first season ran in GB as stated but never showed here in the USA until now. I can think the reason must be that either the BG audience hated it or loved it not knowing about the novel series. Deborah Harkness who crafted this entire world and all the characters in it did a terrific job. I shudder to guess why she permitted this abomination of her work to be shown. But if she has the same attitude Stephen King does as he said himself in an interview decades ago..."Once I'm paid what I ask for my story, I don't care what is done to it. If people are upset with the TV or movie version of a story of mine they've read, I can only suggest they don't watch the live action version and reread my story. I consider these two mediums to be completely different arenas which is why I feel as I do about my work that is purchased from me. I wouldn't buy something from anyone then allow them to tell me how I should use it. I think of my works in this same manner. But I can understand why readers can be disappointed or even upset when something live action doesn't match what they've enjoyed reading. I won't get into the practical financial realities of the costs or what technologies were available at the time except this one. When DePalma bought the rights to do my first published novel Carrie, I was so thrilled and felt like I had really hit the jackpot with a very lucky break. Then after the movie came out many people were disappointed although the acting was never criticized, nor the directing. The biggest criticism was how many things and situations that were missing. Mr. DePalma told me that he wanted to have Carrie doing to the town exactly the same as I wrote it, but the budget would not allow it. So is that anyone's fault? Was it done differently on purpose? Yes, but in this case, budget was the very simple reason. I hope people wil, understand." He said this decades ago and I was willing to accept this answer since it seemed quite fair and reasonable plus I think the movie captured the mood perfectly to the novel. However, king selling the right to his Dark Tower 7 novel lifetimes worth of work series to not care what a POS that thing was is inexcusable. No reasoning in the world would cause me to feel it was nothing more than quick money for doing nothing AND worst of all obviously NOT A CARE how it turned out. If this is true for Ms. Harkness, I'm very sad for her to need money that badly to pimp out such a fine body of work.