Eight years later, the Game of Thrones pilot shows both the good and bad of the HBO series

The Daily Beast

The "racist" and "problematic" portrayals of the Dothraki and Daenerys Targaryen's naked introduction and rape don't hold well today, says Kevin Fallon. "What shocked me is how emblematic that very first episode is of what the show would become, in all ways good and bad," he says. "I remember reviews at the time were largely positive, entranced by the scope of production, if slightly dismissive of the series as too niche and directed at a certain fantasy-fan demographic." He adds that the pilot is still one of the best episodes of the series. "Perhaps the most impressive thing about that first 68 minutes—simpler times, when we thought that was a long running time—was the amount of confidence co-creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, who co-wrote the pilot, and Timothy Van Patten, who directed it, had in their ambitious vision and how a production of this magnitude and complexity would unfold. It blasts off as if out of a cannon." ALSO: Many TV critics who became Game of Thrones fans initially gave the show negative reviews.