I’m still working my way through Doctor Who, and got through “Father’s Day” over the weekend, an episode that to me epitomizes the strengths and weaknesses of the show. It doesn’t make sense, for example, that all the Doctor’s interventions, which happen in every freakin’ episode of the show wouldn’t have changed the world enough to make beasties show up and start, uh, eating everything. For that to be true, the Doctor has to consistently show up in places where something else has caused time or history to go out of whack, and whatever he does has to restore things to the way they were supposed to be, even if he doesn’t know what they are. That’s way too much chance to accept.

But, despite the fact that the episode reveals that gaping conceptual flaw in the series, it’s also an example of what’s best about it. The tenderness and difficulty between Rose and the Doctor is beautifully executed. His anger at her is a reflection of his love and anger and fear—it’s an exceptionally vulnerable moment, seeing him run out on her. When they walk back towards the TARDIS hand in hand, it feels wonderfully intimate, even though it’s only the first stage of romantic or sexual touch.

Most of all, though, I think this particular episode set back in Rose’s world does a lovely job of opening up her back story. The show is set just after her birth, so it’s less about formational experiences for her, and more about the architecture in which she grew up. What Rose learns is that her father was much less successful, and the relationship between him and her mother was much less loving and idyllic than she had been told growing up. But she also learns that despite his failures as a husband and as a businessman, her father was a decent, loving man. The episode is a great nod to the power of the stories we tell ourselves and others about our lives, and an exploration of her mother’s weakness and regret.

One of the things I like most about the series is that Rose clearly wants to escape her mother, who is a difficult person, and not an exceptionally strong or smart one, though she’s definitely not evil. When we meet Rose, she’s young, working class, and doesn’t seem to have a lot of other prospects, or anyone driving her to think about living a more expansive life. But when the Doctor offers her an opportunity to see and live more widely in the world and beyond it, she dives for it, without fear or regret. It’s not that Rose doesn’t love her mother, but she needs to move beyond her, her mother’s apartment, and her mother’s scrapbook. In “Father’s Day,” she gets a narrative of her own to replace it. And she and the Doctor walk out into the universe together. It’s rebellion, sure, but intelligent rebellion, both for Rose, and to viewers. She’s not acting out. She’s growing.

Not that I want to foreswear rigorous analysis of the text or anything, but for this last day of discussion of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series, I want to turn some attention to the HBO miniseries that got me interested in the books in the first place, specifically to the casting. I won’t put in a jump for this one, since it’s not about plot points, and will mostly be about characterization, rather than plot.

There have been some obvious good calls that lead me to hope for great things across the board. Peter Dinklage is an obvious choice for Tyrion Lannister, and it’s also a great, meaty role about what it’s like to be a person with dwarfism. Roles like that just aren’t that common, and of course Dinklage wouldn’t want to, and shouldn’t, given his talents, be confined to roles about or inflected by a medical condition that he happens to have. But roles that are in part about living with dwarfism and the rest about living in an intense, ambitious feudal family at a time of enormous upheaval are, um, essentially non-existent, so I can see why Dinklage would want this one in particular.

He’ll have at least one terrific opposite number to play off of. Lena Headey is an awesome choice to play Cersei Lannister, one of the characters I felt queasiest about in the books, and Tyrion’s sister. She’s honed a lot of energy and rage in playing Sarah Connor, and as Queen Gorgo, she was one of the only watchable things in 300. That’s actually been an unfortunate pattern in her movie career: she’s been in a lot of eccentric junk, and things like the dreadful Imagine Me & You, in which she plays a sexy lesbian seducer to not exceptionally good effect. It’ll be nice to see her in a role that will make awesome use of her skills, and maybe give her the prestige to go on to more intelligent and successful projects.

I’m less certain about Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jamie Lannister, if only because the only movie I’ve seen that IMDb says he was in was, um, Wimbeldon, as embarrassed as I am to admit that, and I definitely don’t remember him in it at all. I have different concerns about Sean Bean as Eddard. Lord of the Rings sure proves that he looks dandy in clothing of the era and does a decent job as a man struggling against core inner weakness. But I’ve never found the dude to be exceptionally peaceful or subtle, and I’ll be curious to see how he does anchoring a series of this magnitude. I’d feel a bit more comfortable if they’d cast someone I was more familiar with as Catelyn Tully Stark, since I just don’t know how Michelle Fairley will balance Bean out. She’s mostly done one-offs in television after a series of recurring parts in shows or miniseries in the late nineties and early aughts. One thing in her favor though, she’s been cast as Hermoine’s mother in the Deathly Hallows movies, which means two directors of big, freighted projects are banking on her chops.

Where I’m most concerned though is the casting of the series’ children. The actors playing Arya Stark, Sansa Stark, and Jon Snow have literally never acted before. The girl playing Dany has one television episode credit to her name. Alfie Allen, Lily’s little brother, is playing Theon Greyjoy. Casting children is an obvious and consistent challenge, but it’s especially freighted in projects like this because the children have to bear so much more emotional strain and witness things that are so much more dramatic than most child actors have to put up with. This is Dakota Fanning in Hounddog territory except the whole world is awful, way beyond Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass since the violence is constant, persistent, and much bloodier and direct, and because the characters knew other lives and dreamed other dreams. And these children are ultimately the center of the story. Sean Bean will be a nominal anchor, but if the kids fail, so does the series.

But I’m trying to stay optimistic. A series that’s casting the awesome and underrated Rory McCann (who plays Michael the trolly-boy in Hot Fuzz, and the great, gawky, charming detective in the first episode of State of Play) as a vicious swordsman with a maimed face and charred morals has some imagination and ambition.