10. All In The Family
Episode One: "Winter is Coming" Commentators: Co-executive producers/co-creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss Despite what you may think, "Winter is Coming" didn't always exist in its current, glorious form. Benioff and Weiss actually shot and edited a previous, but after consulting with a few screenwriter friends, the pair realized there were a lot of problems that had to be fixed and set out to re-shoot "Winter is Coming" all over again. One of the problems - aside from the fact that no one understood that Jaime and Cersei Lannister were related - was the overall lack of warmth felt from and for the Starks, the honorable family that viewers would use an entry way into the world of Westeros and whose eventual permanent separation was supposed to carry the most emotional weight of the plethora of storylines from which we would be jumping back and forth. In the initial pilot, Benioff and Weiss introduced viewers to the Starks the same way Martin did in his inaugural book - with the beheading of Will, the Nights Watch deserter. Eddard Stark's (Sean Bean) introducing his sons to the cold steel of justice may have informed us that Ned was a man of honor, but it wasn't exactly casting him in the most sympathetic of lights. Therefore, Benioff and Weiss went back to the drawing board and crafted a new introductory scene where the Starks - Eddard, Catelyn (Michelle Fairley), Robb (Richard Madden), Arya (Maisie Williams), Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) and Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) - are all gathered around watching Bran being playfully upstaged in archery by Arya. Later on they were also sure to include and scene where Catelyn spends some face time with eldest daughter, Sansa (Sophie Turner). These scenes, though insignificant in regards to plot, were emotionally necessary; instrumental in casting the Starks as a loving, tight knit family, the kind of down-to-earth simple people who are thrust into a larger conflict unwillingly, anchoring our hearts in their plight as a family that is irrevocably torn apart.