I actually thought episode 1 was great. I read them all so I'm not so much watching to see what happens but watching to watch...and there were some great scenes. Tyrion/Tywin, Cersei/Tyrion, the brief bit Bolton had, and even Danny's story has more legs than it had in the book (for me anyway)...also Stannis is interesting I loved that story line reading and it's portrayed differently than I read it but still good imo...
...in any even book 3 was the best of the series imo..and I think the next two seasons of GoT will be the best of the show...although the last of the books has not come out yet so we will see