I was expecting so much from this series but it has been a huge disappointment. Some of the characters are amazing (ie Lee Pace, Laura Birn) while others are simply bad actors and clearly don't belong (along with some of their respective sub-plots). In fact, I skip entire sub-plots or character developments because they are pointless or simply drag on with nonsense. I have not read the books and do not plan on ever reading them so I was hoping this series would fill this void but it fails miserably. I continue to watch but I skip about 20 mins per episode.