The pilot nobody saw, and the two roles it cost

The original pilot was shot, viewed, and judged not to work. It was substantially reshot before broadcast, and in the process two significant roles changed hands: Emilia Clarke replaced Tamzin Merchant as Daenerys Targaryen, and Michelle Fairley replaced Jennifer Ehle as Catelyn Stark. Neither decision was a comment on the original actors so much as on what the show turned out to need once someone could watch it end to end. Winterfell had also been somewhere else entirely — Doune Castle in Scotland, a 14th-century courtyard castle, before production settled in Northern Ireland for good. Almost nothing of that first version is public. What survives of it is indirect: the show that aired has two of its most important performances only because the first attempt was allowed to fail.