I didn't hate it. Didn't love it either, but it wasn't terrible. They do a lot of telling instead of showing... and when they do show, it's pretty hamfisted ("Look at the heron on the sword.... look at it!!!!")
Ok, you've piqued my interest, because the Rand in my head is a 6'6 Viking and the guy in the trailers is a WC prettyboy with all the gravitas of Woody Allen.
Rand definitely did not start out like that. He was definitely described as a pretty, but clueless boy, tall, sweet, backwards. The actor they got, does that pretty well... now can he grow into the guy you're picturing? I never pictured him as a Viking though...not exactly sure, just someone very hard edged and powerful.
I thought Mat's casting was pretty good.
I wish they'd shown Tam being a bit more of a badass... they hinted at it, but not enough.
I agree having a very ethnically diverse Two Rivers makes little sense, particularly when they even mention the "old blood", both in the books, and the show, it's supposed to be very isolated. I'm good with changing ethnicities from books to shows, but it ought to make sense. But whatever, it wasn't that jarring as presented in the show.
I'm not sold on Moiraine. I think they did ok with Lan so far.
totally agree with the odd change with Perrin's storyline. Not sure why they made that change... maybe something to do with how he treats Faile later, especially when she gets kidnapped by the Shaido, maybe?
Anyway, it's good enough that i'll probably watch the second episode when i'm folding laundry at some point, but not good enough that i immediately need to watch the next episode.