I’m not sure that is fair, he doesn’t want to rush to war with another powerful nation or against his own brother. Both of this are fairly reasonable positions.
In this kind of environment, being a king seems to require one to be a man of action and he seems to be dithering. He needs to present the appearance of strong leadership.
I think the show fairly portrays the fact that there is not necessarily one right answer in a difficult situation. Viserys is able to articulate a pretty sophisticated justification for his decisions. I don’t think the show means to portray him as being bad at kingship; on the contrary. I think the show means to portray the fact that in real life there are no clear answers and different people may have reasonably different approaches.
It is also very clear that everyone else has a clear agenda that is not necessarily about doing what is best.
Ratings went up from the first episode. 10.2 million vs 9.9 for the first.
True. Viserys might not have 100 percent pure motives, but he seems to be at least trying to do his best. Everyone else is mostly in it for themselves.
With the hightower daughter and the princess, kept having flashbacks to Ted Theodore Logan:
“Hello Missy, sorry, I mean Mom”.
At least he didn’t choose the twelve-year-old. That was icky.
Yeah, I think you are supposed to think choosing her was kind of a dick move but damn…
Well, clearly, he wasn’t going to sleep with her while she was still a child. He make that clear. I suspect he might have waited even longer than she suggested (14).
On the other hand, he did choose to marry a 15-year-old, who, in modern society is considered a child, but in many cultures in the past was well into adulthood.
If we are going to judge ickiness from our modern point of view, I’m not sure that one is that much better a choice than the other, assuming that he was going to delay sleeping with either one when they had reached a certain age (the same age, that is).
He also went about announcing his engagement in a stupid way; he could have at least turned down Lord Velaryon’s proposal in private instead of blindsiding him at the Small Council meeting. 
Granted Alicent’s presence should clued him in that something fishy was going down.
Viserys allows himself to be ruled by his Hand and his small council, rather than ruling them. Rhaenyra is clearly frustrated by this, as is the Iron Throne itself. It brings to mind a conversation Tywin had with Tommen about what makes a good king, the gist being that neither trying to do the right thing nor be loved by everyone nor rule by fear makes for a good king.
So the new credits… They baffled me. The GOT ones served as a rough guide to the locations around Westeros, well animated, so we realised that episode had the Wall, Oldtown and Kings Landing.
But this one? Was it a fly-through on the Red Keeps underground dragon parking garage with extra blood? It doesn’t bode well for me if they’ve just made a bunch of fancy credits just like GOT with no real purpose, it’s the sort of decision which might apply throughout the season…
The AV Club said that he’s playing with his Legos instead of being king.
Dear old dad is gravely tackling important matters of state, by which I mean that he is playing with his Legos. He’s showing Alicent Hightower his model of the capital of Old Valyria, telling her all about the history of the ruined island where the Targaryens hail from. Along the way, he slips and accidentally breaks his favorite dragon action figure. Later, she’ll return it to him as a gift, newly mended, a gesture that may have ultimately solidified the king’s decision at the end of the episode.
The model of Kings Landing does lend King Viserys an appearance of wanting to put his attentions elsewhere. But “above his capabilities” compared to who?
Aerys II Targaryen AKA “The Mad King”
Robert Baratheon whose main hobbies were whoring and drinking
Joffrey Baratheon who mainly enjoyed being a petty tyrant
Daenerys Targaryen who mostly ruled by lighting things on fire with her dragons
We are told King Viserys isn’t a that great of a king (mostly by his brother) and he is definitely too reliant on his Small Counsel. But by comparison, he doesn’t seem completely incompetent. And Rhaenys points out “he is no fool”.
I thought that if they were going to do a credit sequence, what might have been helpful would have been to have a stylized Targaryen family tree the way the original show gave us a map to help the audience follow along.
I was stunned the credits used the same song and style. Song, mainly. Why wouldn’t they compose a new theme song?
I was too busy trying to work out what the animation was, but yes, the choice of just the theme from Game Of Thrones was utterly bizarre.
Maybe if they used this version instead?
