Enterprise failed in a lot of very important ways, but at least season 3 took an interesting premise and largely followed through on it.

I know there's a lot of detailed fantasy worlds out there, but how Martin's pulled a world as complex as this one out of his mind is just stunning to me. Twenty years of work is impressive, even if it's never finished.

@avclub-e95a45d0b1f5afdf0ab9cde82b4b1d06:disqus 
"And the idiot wasn't even good looking!"

I agree. Sure, not much happens, but both books are the deep breath before the (inevitable) plunge. AFfC and ADwD is where the majority of the world-building happens, and Septon Meribald's monologe in AFfC is probably the best distillation of the series' antiwar theme.

I like AFfC and ADwD a lot more than most on these threads, but they could totally be condensed into ten hours of tv. Bye by, Dorne.

ADWD SPOILERS
Arya's conversation with the Kindly Man in ADWD heavily implies that the Faceless Men had some hand in the fall of Valyria.

@Bob K
I'd say WALL-E has a more negative ending in the 'return-from-armageddon' genre. Here an unspecified portion of the oceans are gone, but the biosphere and climate are depicted as largely intact. There an only marginally life sustaining Earth is suddenly repopulated by obese incompetents.

@avclub-618fd0370047b25592c8a7db0ff8a9c0:disqus I'd be interested in following along.

Every one of those kids is going to grow up into a fervent Tyrell partisans. She understands power in a way that Cersei never has.

I'm amazed they produced as much quality episodes as they did. The pace must have been absolutely breakneck.

@jwood:disqus I think I remember hearing that mail is notoriously difficult for costume designers to replicate, which makes sense given that it takes so long to make. Even though scale armor isn't particularly historically accurate for the time period, I can see them substituting for cost constraints.