When I watched this series, I immediately thought, 'What a poorly made adaptation of what must be a great book.' The ideas and concepts are great, but the characters and casting are so terrible. The good thing is, it pushed me to read the books, and I was right. Everything I hated about the series was because of the writers made up for the tv play, and everything I liked was already in the book and even better.
So, in a nutshell, I'm not someone who read the book first and then critiqued the series. It was quite the opposite.