It started what, over a decade ago? Think about it in context, it was the first fantasy show to be given a huge budget and weight behind it, the first to be given the ‘prestige television HBO’ treatment.
Don’t feel like you need to make a huge commitment, it’s fairly focused and you can take what you want from it.
Don’t care about the hype at all, people who make media their personality are not who you want to emulate, enjoy it or don’t it’s entertainment
Check out Coursera, solid essential Mandarin course for free spanning several weeks that was good on tone work.