The Game of Thrones successor seems to be having some growing pains. Hopefully, everything in House of the Dragon will eventually get better. In the last decade, Game of Thrones has been the absolute highlight in the land of series. It even rose to the top of the MySeries top 100 list. No wonder that HBO has decided to expand this rating beast into a franchise. A sequel wasn't really possible, seeing as the source material (the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin) was pretty much non-existent at the end of Game of Thrones. And with the final season of that series, HBO had shown that they weren't the best at making it up as they went. However, in the book series, there are some companion books, one of which describes the history of House Targaryen (Fire and Blood). This House has a dragon as a symbol, which pretty much explains the title of the series. HBO then decided to focus on a passage that takes place approximately 200 years before Game of Thrones. A period that resulted in a civil war after a lot of arguments about the throne succession. This probably sounds familiar to those who enjoy Game of Thrones as the plot, in essence, is quite similar. HBO pretty much decided to 'never change a winning team'.
In the eight episodes of this first season, the series goes through approximately twenty years. The consequence of that is that there isn't a whole lot of depth in the character development. Besides that, HBO also thought it necessary to replace some of the younger actors halfway through the season. This included the two lead characters. This is even more regretful considering that Milly Alcock (Upright) as Princess Rhaenyra was an absolute highlight and pretty much a new Daenerys to be. Her replacement, Emma D'Arcy (Wanderlust), is not that big a success just yet, in my opinion. Emily Carey (Casualty) also excellently portrayed Alicent Hightower, but she was also replaced. With Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel).
All of the above makes it quite difficult to develop sympathy for the two main characters. It just moves forward too fast. Before you know it, a marriage has happened, someone has died or has been murdered, and various children have been born. And somewhere along the way, some people lose one or more limbs. 'Less is more' is a British saying, and it seems that HBO tried to make that happen, but it doesn't work. Fewer characters, fewer locations, fewer storylines, a lot less sex and nudity, and especially a lot less action. These shortages were filled with a lot, and I really mean a lot, of political discussions in various keeps. You just wonder what HBO has done with the budget, which is more than 100 million dollars by the way. The CGI dragons are absolutely amazing, but those couple of minutes per episode really couldn't have been that expensive.
Is House of the Dragon a bad series? Definitely not. The scenery and costumes are absolutely beautiful, the acting is amazing, and the CGI looks great. But... in comparison to the original, it just doesn't live up to it. It is a lot duller and a lot more 'decent'.
But hope remains: the final episode finally shows some substance, you can feel the darkness approaching and as a whole, the atmosphere has become a lot grimmer. Technically, this season pretty much put all the chess pieces on the Ice and Fire chessboard in the right spot, and it is now time to finally truly start. I do fear that if the second season continues in the same manner as the first, people will stop watching. It is safe to say that a lot of Game of Thrones fans will keep watching, and the question is how long they can remain patient. Because of all of the above, I have decided to give this season a meager 6.5. It just doesn't - yet - live up to its predecessor. Hopefully, what we've seen has just been the calm before the storm.
I personally enjoyed this season, it followed the book well and clearly thought this was a prelude to a more action-packed second season. Game of Thrones was also long-winded at times, so in that respect this one is just as "boring". House of the Dragon takes place almost exclusively in one place, making the world a lot smaller than that of Game of Thrones, which of course had an awful lot of different storylines that followed each other in rapid succession. That is not the case with HoD because it focuses on one storyline. All in all, I'm curious to see what season 2 will bring and how Rhaenyra will get her revenge. If we have to wait for GRRM for source material, I'm gloomy. The best man writes a word a day at a snail's pace and he still has a number of books to write, so that won't be it, I'm afraid. By the way, in this article I regularly see Games (with an s) or Thrones instead of Game (without s) or Thrones and Fire and Ice instead of Ice and Fire and that makes it a bit sloppy to read.
Good series. What's just a shame is that most episodes are so dark. Of course, that also has to do with the time in which it takes place, but still. We could not watch some parts during the day because our surroundings were hidden in the image.
