I originally wasn't going to watch it, since the Olympics do not interest me at all, but then I figured that I may as well see what we came up with. And I really enjoyed it, well I enjoyed the first 90 mins of it. I thought the farmland turning into a massive forge that made the rings was really good. I thought the celebration of children's literature was really good, but the celebration of British music I thought didn't really need to be there.
The best bits were easily James Bond picking up the Queen (which shows that Her Majesty has a good sense of humour) and Mr Bean playing Chariots of Fire.
But as for the bad bits, why did they really need to have all of the teams come out in order. That went on for far too long. I can understand showing off all the competitors, but you could tell that most people just switched it off (and left the stadium) and returned just to see the Queen officially open it. All they really needed to do was have the flag bearers come out at once, would saved time and peoples attention span. And as people have already said, why did they choose the Arctic Monkeys? Of all the British bands out there, they chose them for the Opening Ceremony? Why not have the Who or the Rolling Stones, they are both a lot more famous and would have been a better choice for this moment.
But finally, and this is really a nitpick, but why wasn't the Doctor present? We had James Bond and Mary Poppins, why not another fictional character that is the best of British? Would it had really been that difficult to have the TARDIS appear on the field, if only for a cameo?