A picture might be worth a thousand words, but not a moving picture. The Godfather was a relatively short novel, but they got a double-length movie out of it, half of the sequel, and they STILL left a bunch of stuff out. It is simply impossible to convey books with substantial depth on film or TV.

I've moved into a place of acceptance of the show as an inferior product and separated it in my mind from the book series. Now, every time they manage to hit one of the book high notes, it is a pleasant surprise, rather than the disappointments of the places where they have to water down, change or omit depth from the books.