Yeah, I generally got a 19th century Hapsburg vibe off them (with the Narn as Serbs), but you can see bits of other empires in there.  The ever growing pantheon of emperors elevated to godhood was a definite ancient Rome shoutout.

Yeah, going off my (faded) memory of first watching it, it didn't work for me as a passionate, head over heels soulmates kind of romance.  But, as a semi-chaste partnership between two compatible and friendly people, I bought it.

My mind went straight to Lear as well, but I mentally backed off the comparison because of the comedy/tragedy thing.  It's more like Lear and Much Ado had a weird, big-haired, German accented baby.

I liked that she says Vir's name the same way Londo does, nice touch.  And yes, she was definitely my favorite of the wives.

Yeah, I doubt they're actually dumping that characterization.  Plenty of stabby opportunities down the road.

Oh, I liked that detail (and the complexity in general) in the books.  But if you're looking to pare down some of that complexity for the series, Sorrowful Men are a low impact cut.

I knew there was some level of fuckupery on the ravens, but couldn't remember what.  I thought he got an initial "OMGZOMBIESWTF" raven off though, before the battle proper started.

And yay for a "Pod squires awkwardly" scene.  I had feared he was going to be pushed back into the margins and never spoken of again.

They did make one change to Sam which I didn't like.  In the books, he at least gets some of the ravens off.

That said, a lot of Jon's most exciting stuff is (or can be) post RW, and could be pushed to season 4.

Plus, good as the book reveal was, it wasn't a huge surprise.  Arstan Whitebeard is the sort of alias you come up with when you're asked your name before you've come up with an alias.

I'm actually ok with that.  Two mysterious assassin guilds is probably one too many for the TV version, and the warlocks have already been introduced and have a motive.

@mrratfink:disqus  Not bring, send.  In the mail.  It shall be the smelliest viewer protest in history.

Someday, I hope that as a playoff push or bonding exercise, a whole team grows 19th-century presidential facial hair.  I want to see a whole roster of Chester A Arthurs.

- The needle in the eye thing didn't actually shock me that much, only because my father has that done to him on a semi-regular basis.  I was seriously squirmy and wigged out by it (If I inherit my dad's condition, I've resigned myself to going blind instead of doing the needle thing), but not shocked.

I went a minute or two afterward thinking "ok, that's just Crichton picturing the scene in his head, just a bait and switch, that didn't actually happen.  So I got shocked by it twice, once as it happened and again when I realized it was legit.

Also, if you think you've been spoiled, don't panic:

http://www.youtube.com/watc…

Wait, are we still talking about grandmas?

The popularity of zombies makes more sense if you compare it to the disaster fiction genre, instead of the monster/supernatural genre.