They did a podcast a few weeks ago about the GoT trailer and they were basically salivating the entire time. I didn't hear any dismissiveness at all, and definitely not from Ryan. Greenwald is just dismissive in general, as part of his overall ethos and being "cool".
Yeah I don't see any dismissiveness at all from them. They call when it airs their "regular season." No they haven't read the books but I don't get the sense that they are making fun of the readers and they seem to be in awe of Mallory and Concepcion's knowledge.
I listened to the latest "The Watch" today and I figured out my issue with them - they're not nerds. Which is totally fine, there's no minimum nerd requirement to enjoy or even podcast about these things, but it's evident when they talk about "Game of Thrones, " comic book movies, or "Star Wars" that they are casual fans and not nerds. What I previously termed a "dismissive" attitude towards GoT was really more about not being nerdy and not doing deep dives on these topics. A few examples:
-Ryan mentioned today (and has mentioned several times before) that the reason Marvel is doing "Civil War" is that they're out of interesting villains and they have to resort to the "heroes punching each other." Neither wants to see "Civil War." Again - it doesn't have to be everyone's bag, I am not criticizing them for not wanting to see a movie or for expressing an opinion contrary to mine, but I can't wait for that film. And they don't spend any time discussing why some people are excited for this next chapter in the MCU.
-The both agreed that a limitation to "superhero movies" was that they all had to be interconnected. I think the continuity in the Marvel films is a feature, not a bug. I was disappointed when "Batman Forever" ignored the fact that Harvey Dent was in the first movie, for example. Now, one can argue about which movies incorporate it more or less successfully, and you can discuss how it might hurt some films (for example, costing "Ant Man" Edgar Wright as director), but that's not what they're doing here. They're saying in one sentence, "It's a problem," full stop. They don't want to discuss when it can be a positive, they just express exhaustion with the whole thing.
-Discussing "Rogue One," Greenwald hopes that it's a stand-alone film and that it doesn't have any "connective tissue" to the rest of the "Star Wars" universe. A "Star Wars" fan just wants a fun Star Wars movie. A Star Wars nerd wants to discuss characters/lineage/all the nerdy crap we revel in down in "Omar is Dead." And, by the way, of course it's going to have connective tissue with the rest of the universe.
All of this is a long way of saying, I think these two are GoT fans but far, far from GoT nerds. Good thing they have GoT nerds as regular guests. I think the entire endeavor would be stronger with Mallory and Jason steering the ship with Andy and Chris taking a decidedly secondary role, but I don't think that's going to happen.