Along with what seemed like everyone I know on Facebook, this weekend I watched the first episode of the seventh and final season of Game of Thrones. I haven’t read the books, nor have I kept up with the show beyond the second season, but I watched it anyway. (While also working, of course, because multitasking.)

As with all the episodes I’ve seen, I was blown away by the production values and the world building, most of which as I understand is very true to GRRM’s original vision. While I don’t always appreciate the sadistic violence, and most of the political scheming is beyond me, I do appreciate the scale and detail of the storytelling. In this one I particularly liked the glimpse we got of the undead giants — a combination that will get me every time.

It’s always a risk to watch an adaptation of an adored story, because of course it’s never going to look or feel how it does on the screen in your head. However, sometimes if you take that risk, you find that the adaptation at the very least can enhance your understanding of the story and the world it inhabits. (I surely wouldn’t have populated the undead army with giants on my own!)

I watched the UK adaptation of The Girl With All the Gifts a couple weeks ago, and was pleasantly surprised by how true it was to the story. Beyond that though, I loved how well that post-apocalyptic world was portrayed, as they’d given detail and heft to its minutiae that I would’ve never imagined.

Not all adaptations are done as successfully, but these are two that I’ve enjoyed of late. What are your favorite/least favorite adaptations out there, and why?