The series is actually quite enjoyable, the acting is good, and the host of interesting female characters are not overlooked or patronised. It's just it is like - I described my feelings on the show to
altariel yesterday - it's like a mountain landscape which has been flooded by the sea, so only a few peaks show above the surface, little islands of plot, and the great mass of complexity is hidden.Of course any adaptation means change. The type of change I was expecting was that each character's personality would be conveyed by visual rather than verbal means. But I feel that the loss was quite a bit more complete than that, and whole plot elements were reduced to single throw-away lines. But this is probably the shortest distance between reading and viewing ever, and that may be making me more conscious of loss than I would usually be.
I am emotionally engaged with the story and the characters, and I feel a lump in my throat, and I feel that Jackson is gorgeous as we are expected to. It's just probably they could have taken it slower.