HBO aired promotional material for a bunch of upcoming programs before the 'True Blood' finale Sunday, but for some of us, there was only one show we cared about (apologies to 'Eastbond & Down,' 'Bored to Death,' etc.).

Those of us who have been awaiting 'Game of Thrones,' which premieres in 2011, got their first extensive looks at the epic, which stars Lena Headey, Sean Bean, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Michelle Fairley, Peter Dinklage, Charles Dance, Jason Momoa, Emilia Clarke, Aiden Gillen and Mark Addy.

The image at right is of Clarke as Daenerys, the exiled aristocrat whose coming of age is one of the main threads of 'Game of Thrones.' The first season of the HBO series is based on the first in a series of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin.

The videos that aired Sunday on HBO are below.The first video is a behind-the-scenes piece: It contains interviews with Martin, Bean and executive producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, as well as various shots of the Belfast-area sets and the cast in costume.

The second video is HBO's 'Raven' promo spot, which has a few delectable shots from the series:

Just for kicks, here's the previous 'GoT' promo that HBO unveiled in June:

What do you think, 'GoT' fans? I don't know about you but the glimpses I saw Sunday got me even more excited about the show, which I wrote about extensively in my previous job. You can find all those stories here.

There's also a new production diary on HBO's 'Game of Thrones' site, so superfans will want to bookmark that site. On that site, Benioff and Weiss wrote a note to fans:

"The enthusiasm for the show was palpable before a single actor was cast or a frame shot," they wrote. "Trust us: the Powers That Be noticed. And so did we. When we spend two hours discussing the details of the House Bolton sigil or the hilt of a certain Valyrian steel dagger or the content of a few pages from 'The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms' that won't be onscreen for more than a second – sometimes we wonder if anyone will notice. But someone will. You guys will. And it makes all the difference knowing there are people out there who care as much about this story as we do. We all want to get it right."

I'll no doubt be stopping by the fan sites Winter Is Coming, Westeros and Tower of the Hand to see what the general reaction of Martin's extensive and passionate fandom has to say.

Update: If I have one concern, it's that Daenerys' hair seems very, very white-blond, perhaps a tad too blond? That seems to be something of a concern with fans (who appear to be generally positive in their reactions to what they've seen). But I'm not really that bothered about it at this stage. My thinking is that it's really not possible to evaluate how her hair and makeup look until we see completed episodes. And besides, everything else looks pretty fab.

So far I'm in agreement with Martin himself, who said in the behind-the-scenes video that the people producing the show "got it right." He was also quoted as saying that setting foot on the set for the first time was like seeing one of his dreams come to life.

Your thoughts?