Though a lot has been made of HBO’s healthy viewing figures for Game of Thrones in the states, being a UK based fan site, we are much more interested in how the show has perfomed in the UK.

As you may have seen from earlier posts I am not a fan of Sky, News Corp, or Rupert Murdoch, and I was dismayed by HBO’s decision to tie in with SKY in the UK.

Up until this point Sky executives must have been worrying about viewing figures for the new channel. Previous best figures were for Boardwalk Empire on the launch night of the new series which averaged 438,000 viewers for its premier.

This sounds like fair figures, but the story hasn’t generally been rosy for Sky Atlantic. Entourage which on ITV2 was regularly getting 200,000 visitors, only received 18,000 for its series premier on Sky.

Sky’s response from Mike Darcey, chief operating officer of BSkyB was to claim that he didn’t look at ratings any more and he stopped looking at the results “a long time ago”, that he was more concerned with column inches written, “We will look at success in a different way”.

My reading of the comments and figures is that Sky Atlantic was in deep trouble, and looking like becoming a very expensive flop!

However figures in for Game of Thrones have come in very healthy with an average of 743,000 viewers watching live on Monday night and overall figures of 1.07 million viewers when time shift viewing is taken into consideration.

I wonder if Mr Darcey has looked at those figures? or is he still only interested in column inches?

Obviously good news for SKY, but is it good news for HBO and Game of Thrones? Well if they had opted for the show to be seen on one of free to air, the channels most of us in the UK would of liked to have seen it on (E4, BBC2, More 4 ) we would have seen much higher viewing figures, probably in the region of 2.4 to 2.6 million as Sky Atlantic is only in approx 40% of UK households, and its traditional subscriber base doesn’t really match HBO’s intelligent output very well.

I belive this figures suggest that HBO have a show that would of been an absolute smash in the UK if it was not on Sky, but on a more accessible channel.

We were not too nervous about the series pilot getting picked up we were even less nervous about the 2^nd series.

The Most detailed comments from HBO can be found in this entertainment week interview with HBO presidents Richard Plepler and Michael Lombard.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What made you decide to renew Thrones?

Lombardo: It’s a great show that only gets better with every episode and ends where you’re left wanting more. On a creative level, it was screaming for another season. We had absolutely expectation that this would be a slow build. It’s challenging for people who’ve decided it’s not a genre for them. The word of mouth has been great and we don’t even have OnDemand numbers yet. We thought it was a great starting place.
Plepler: It’s a quintessential HBO show — it has a passionate connection with a big part of our audience. Whether the final number is 7 or 8 million viewers it doesn’t take anything away from the addictive quality of the show for a large chunk of our audience.

How many episodes is the second season?
Lombardo: It’s such a challenging show to produce. They don’t have a writing staff — its just the two of them (David Benioff and D.B. Weiss). The idea is to do 10 of them again, and that’s what they want to do, to maintain the quality of their work.

When will season two premiere?
Lombardo: We don’t want people to wait more than a year. This is a production challenge. You have to start every season anew [with new locations].
Plepler: Same time, next year.

When will production start?
Lombardo: The producers are scouting locations for second season now. That’s all to be discussed.

Many thanks to the guys at www.winter-is-coming.net for putting on to that information.

• Episode 1 – Winter is Coming
• Episode 2 – The Kingsroad
• Episode 3 – Lord Snow
• Episode 4 – Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
• Episode 5 – The Wolf and the Lion
• Episode 6 – A Golden Crown
• Episode 7 – You Win or You Die
• Episode 8 – The Pointy End
• Episode 9 – Baelor
• Episode 10 – Fire and Blood

We are very excited and will welcome your opinions below.

A quick synposis of Euegene is he is an established British born child actor, who expect to appear in the following shows this year I Ben-Hur, Summer In Transylvania, House of Anubis & Game of Thrones.

He also says he is delighted to recieved feedback .

What does this mean?

1. Bleak is that only word that can sum up this first 15 minutes. There is bleakness in the plot, the imagery, the scenery a stoeic hardness to the characters and even the demands of duty.
2. That its is captivating, for 15 minutes I have been drawn in and not been able to do more that scrawl one word ona peice of paper as the preview has grabbed me. I was drawn in and lost in the world of death and ice.
3. That time went faster than I thought, nothing dragged, and I could not believe we had covered all 15 minutes already. I do not expect this series to drag often point.

Beyond my lack of note taking what else struck me about the preview?

• The acting, I have to say that I was impressed with every performance brief though they were, I was suprised I wasn’t annoyed by Sean Bean ever present Yorkshire accent, in fact I was suprised I managed to distinguish this character from Richard Sharpe and Boromir in a very limited amount of screen time, I think we may get more here than Sean Bean being Sean Bean. However three performances stood out for me in the preview and I think we will all be delighted by them going forward these were Michelle Fairley as Cat,  Kit Harrington as Jon Snow and  Maise Williams as Arya Stark.
• The use of silence and lack of score, I actually found the silences and the limited use of a score very nervey. I think I was supposed to, but being more used to a heavier use of music or soundscape I am still unsure how this is going to pan out.
• The look and feel is gorgeous, from costumes, to props, to scenery and CGI. I have been almost immediatley pulled into a world which is rich and believable in its detail. Not quite movie standard but a very high standard for TV nonetheless.
• Also I think the cinematography has shown flashes of inspiration. Nothing mindblowing but a few interesting and creative shots which make thing smore watchable and at times a little edgier, the two that spring to mind are the the shot where the riders come from behind camera, and also the shot starting from the headsmans block.
• I have also got to comment on the headcount, thats alot of beheadings for 15 minutes, let us see if it can be bettered at any point in the series?

Anyway those were my impressions I will welcome yours comments below.