Ye olde Sopranos

Let’s say you’ve got a bunch of families that don’t like or trust each other. Some of the families make their money through stealing, killing, and running a string of brothels and gambling dens. Sometimes people get whacked. A few horses get decapitated. And there’s even a wedding.

Sound a lot like The Godfather? Maybe The Sopranos?

More like HBO’s Game of Thrones, a 10-part series that’s airing here starting Aug. 28 (censored, no doubt). Set in medieval times — or rather, pre-medieval times in some alternate universe — it tells the story of Lord Eddard Stark (Sean Bean, who can’t seem to get away from Lord of the Rings-type fantasy roles) as a good, decent man serving as the “hand of the king” to Robert Baratheon (Mark Addy), a roly-poly sort of ruler who’s more interested in hunting and whoring than running his debt-ridden empire (a nod to the U.S. of A., perhaps?) or attending to his wife, Queen Sersei Lannister (Lena Headey). The Lannister clan has its share of oddballs, including the Queen’s twin brother Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who actually shares a bed with his sister; and Tyrion, known as “The Imp” (Peter Dinklage), a dwarf with gigantic cunning, among other things.

Stark’s offspring include three sons and a bastard, Jon Snow, who is sent off to guard the icy wall to the north; as well as an older daughter, Sansa, promised in marriage to the hateful Prince Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson), and a younger, pluckier girl, Arya (Maisie Williams), who is often mistaken for a boy.

Meanwhile, you’ve got the Tagaryen clan, exiled by King Robert in a power coup, who are itching to get back into power. Young nubile Daenerys “Dany” Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) is pimped out by her brother Viserys (Harry Lloyd) to Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), head of the savage land-bound Dothraki clan.

Bring out the Imp: The dwarf Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), in hot water as usual.

Yes, it sounds like work, keeping up with all the weird names, but just like The Godfather, you soon learn to tell your Clemenzas from your Tattaglias.

But unlike modern Italian crime families, these families battle White Walkers — the undead who dwell in snowy forests beyond the northern Wall. They have access to dragons, it turns out. (Spoiler alert!) And they tend to fight it out with maces and broadswords rather than Lugers and Glocks. 

Early reports suggested Game of Thrones (based on a series of books by George R. R. Martin called A Song of Ice and Fire) would be very Tolkien, very Lord of the Rings. Others compared it to Dungeons and Dragons, ye olde game favored by nerds and geeks. What makes Game of Thrones more interesting is that it’s set in a pre-historic past, not quite mythical, not quite Middle-Earth (though series creator David Benioff quipped that it’s “The Sopranos in Middle Earth”), and all too human. The characters each get their moment to shine, or deliver monologues.

Oh, and then there’s the abundant nudity.

With more naked flesh — full frontal and otherwise — than in previous HBO series, the female form is particularly favored in Game of Thrones, and not just prostitutes are shown in various stages of undress. You begin to see why the show is really beloved by so many male geeks out there. During one episode, sly brothel owner Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish (played by Aidan Gillen), instructs a couple of prostitutes by having them practice on one another. During the ongoing “practice session,” the camera lingers on their every erotic move, while somewhere in the background Baelish delivers a lengthy monologue about his past, But who can pay attention to what he’s saying with all the girl-on-girl action? The Imp gets more than his share of female attention too, in Game of Thrones. Let’s just call these frequent (and welcome) bits of nudity “light interludes” between all the treachery and battle scenes.

Pale rider: Young nubile Dany Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) is betrothed to Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), head of the savage Dothraki clan.

The action scenes are bloody and violent and down to earth, and there’s a welcome absence of CGI (so far) in the first season. Shot mostly in Northern Ireland, the setting is the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, which includes mediterranean climes as well as brutally frigid frozen tundras up north. The good news is that fantasy fans won’t have to stomach too much brewed-up wizardry and nonsense; the story focuses intensely on the characters and their back stories, and in this way, Game of Thrones has an almost Shakespearean complexity. Fathers have to choose between honor or their daughters’ lives; bastard sons have to make their way in the world; lords’ wives have to forge sideline deals to work things out.

And when things get slow, there’s always The Imp. Dinklage (you may remember this gifted actor from Living in Oblivion, or perhaps as the “angry” children’s book author in Elf) plays the part of Tyrion to perfection: a spoiled “half man” who uses the Lannister name and fortune to fulfill his every whim and pleasure, yet who also possesses glints of humanity, honor and, above all, tremendous cunning. Watch him wriggle his way out of certain execution by Lady Catelyn Stark’s wrathful sister — first by demanding, as is his right by law, to battle an opponent to win his freedom, and then, when no one is willing to fight a dwarf, enlisting two warriors to go head-to-head to determine his fate. It’s like a reverse sabong, the little guy watching and cheering as two giants tear each other to bits.

At times like this, Game of Thrones transcends its more soapy bits and gets down to the meat and gristle of survival. Those who can sit still for the at-first-confusing avalanche of medieval names, language and places will be hooked by the HBO series. And will they be able to resist Season 2? Fuhgeddaboutit!