Parks and Rec, Community, Doctor Who, and Eurovision

If you aren't watching Parks and Recreation you should. I know I've said it before but I honestly believe that you are missing out on one of the best and most enjoyable TV shows I have seen in a long time. It's funny, it's smart, it's heartwarming, and it's consistently awesome. ( Spoilers for latest episode )

I thought this last episode of Community was good but not great. ( Spoilers )

Doctor Who was pretty great! ( Spoilers )

Finally: EUROPE! I AM DISAPPOINTED IN YOU! HOW COULD YOU VOTE FOR ( Spoilers for the winner of Eurovision )

One of my favourite entries, from 2007.

This is what Eurovision should be!

Game of Thrones

I'm not sure how I really feel about Game of Thrones. It's hard to judge it just as a TV series now that I've read so much of the books (somewhere in book three at the moment) and know what has been left out and what has been added. I find myself frequently liking scenes not in the books - generally those with Jaime and Cersei as the early books don't give them much depth - but a lot of the perfectly replicated scenes just feel like exposition.

And my problem with the books is that so many chapters and storylines are just exposition. We find out about things not because we see them through the POV of a character but because that character is told about them. Big events happen but we don't get to witness them and sometimes that works well for the books - I don't want to read endless descriptions of battles - but at other times the constant telling and lack of showing becomes is frustrating and hollow.

With the TV series I find myself enjoying individual scenes but having no strong feelings about the episodes as a whole. I don't think "Wow, that was a perfectly crafted hour of television" but rather "I really liked that scene between X and X." For me, the TV series is working as an illustrated companion to the books rather than a cohesive entity in its own right, as the most recent mini-series adaptation of Dickens's Bleak House did.

I'm curious as to how other people feel, whether they've read the books or not (especially not). Is context clouding my enjoyment of the series?